LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

x> X- $ 3 ^ 6 — 

Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf.iB-3.r3 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Paul and His Friends 



A SERIES OF 
REVIVAL SERMONS 



BY 




Rev, LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 

Pastor First M. E. Church, Cleveland, Ohio 

AUTHOR OF 

* 4 Christ and His Friends," "The Fisherman and His Friends," 
"The Christian Gentleman," "Sermon Stories for 
Boys and Girls," etc. 



FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 



New York and London ^/y 

1898 



of corvee. 

' f f ICE Of C $S 



2nd COPY, 
1898. 



( APR 151898 j 

i i/Vb t>Ur itb ntl/tii/ti)» 




5518 



Copyright, 1898, by 
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
[Registered at Stationers' Hall, London, England] 

Printed in the United States of A merica 



Go 

THE MEMBERS OF THE 

FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

OF CLEVELAND, OHIO 

WHOSE LOYAL SUPPORT MADE POSSIBLE THE GLORIOUS 
REVIVAL IN THE WHITE HEAT OF WHICH 
THESE SERMONS WERE FORGED 
THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE, 



The sermons contained in this volume were 
preached in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Cleveland, Ohio, during the month of January, 
1898, in a series of evangelistic meetings. The 
themes had been selected two years before and 
illustrations had been gathering during all that 
•time; but each sermon was finally outlined and 
dictated to a stenographer on the day of delivery. 
One of the most gracious revivals I have ever 
known in my pastoral work accompanied their 
utterance. The blessing of God made them at 
that time a message of salvation to many hearts, 
and I pray for His continued blessing upon 
them as they go out in printed form. The other 
volumes of revival sermons which I have pub- 
lished have met with so wide a welcome in all 
parts of the English-speaking world that I am en- 
couraged to hope that these discourses will bring 
suggestive and illustrative material to the hand of 
preachers, Sunday-school teachers, and soul-win- 
ners of every class. 

Louis Albert Banks. 
Cleveland, February 28, 1898. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

A Motto for the New Year, 1 

The Voice of God, .13 

A Look Inside the Sky, 26 

Kicking Against the Goad, . . . .38 

A Warm Hand-Grasp for the Man in the Dark, . 48 
A Man Who Failed Once, but Won on a Second 

Chance, 62 

The Cure of Souls, 75 

A Cry for Help from Silent Lips, . . . .88 

Gallio the Indifferent, 97 

Burning the Bridges in the Rear, . . . .110 
The Fatal Blunder of a Shrewd Governor, . 121 
Obedience to the Heavenly Vision, . . .130 
The Snare of the Soft South Winds, . . .140 
The Emphatic Date in Human Life, . . .150 
The Squandered Birthright, . . . . . 160 

The Lord's Brother, 169 

The Greatest Thief in the World is Neglect, . 182 
A Friend Who Never Fails, 193 



viii 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

The Sword that Cuts Both Ways, . . . 202 

Throwing the Soul's Pursuers Off the Scent, . 215 
Drifting Out of the Track of the Home Ships, . 224 
The Inspiration of Immortality, . . . .235 
The Lord's Saints in the Devil's Palace, . . 245 

The Story of a Shipwreck, 258 

Christ's Conquering Heroes, . . . .269 

The Great Wrestling Match, . . . . 277 

The Credentials of Love, 287 

Escape from a Fatal Handicap, . . . . 297 
Reaping Our Own Sowing, . . . . . 308 
Destiny Decided in Youthful Days, . . 318 
The Greatest Saying in the World, . . .327 
The Waiting Crowns, 338 



PAUL AND HIS FRIENDS. 



A MOTTO FOE THE NEW YEAR. 

" One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, 
and stretching forward to the things which are before, I 
press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling 
of God in Christ Jesus."— Phil iii. 13, 14 (Rev. Ver.). 

A marvelously courageous Scripture is this, 
and one that ought to inspire our hearts in 
these last hours while we wait for the coming 
of the New Year. Paul evidently felt that there 
was no standstill to human life. He was a part 
of a great procession and must keep step with 
alert and eager tread. It will be well if we all 
catch his spirit, and can really sing with Mrs. 
Farningham : 

" One by one, one by one, 
The years march past till the march is done ; 
The Old Year dies to the solemn knell, 
And a merry peal from the clanging bell 
Ushers the others, one by one, 
Till the march of the years shall at last be done. 
1 1 



2 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



"Bright and glad, dark and sad, 
Are the years that come in mystery clad ; 
Their faces are hidden, and none can see 
If merry or sorrowful each will be. 
Bright and sad, dark and glad, 
Have been the years that we all have had. 

" Fair and subtle under the sun, 
Something from us each year has won. 
Has it given us treasures ? Day by day 
It has stolen something we prized away ; 
We meet with fears, and count with tears, 
The buried hopes of the long past years. 

" Is it so ? And yet let us not forget 
How fairly the sun has risen and set ; 
Each year has brought us some sunny hours, 
With a wealth of song and a crown of flowers. 
Power to love, and time to pray, 
Its gifts have been ere it passed away. 

" We hail the New Year that has come in view ; 
Work comes with it, and pleasure too ; 
And even tho it may bring some pain, 
Each passing year is a thing of gain ; 
We greet with song the days that throng. 
Do they bring us trouble? 'Twill make us strong. 

"With smiles of hope and not with tears, 
We meet our friends in the glad New Years ; 
God is with them, and as they come, 
They bear us nearer our restful home ; 
And one by one, with some treasure won, 
They come to our hearts till they all are gone. " 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



3 



The Scriptures have so many appeals intended 
to arouse us to be alert and wakeful as to our duty, 
and there are so many calls to remembrance that 
we are startled, almost, to have the wide-awake 
Paul come to us with an appeal for forgetfulness, 
and yet such it is. He declares that a part of the 
preparation he makes for future victory is forget- 
fulness of the things which are behind. 

Of course Paul does not mean that he will forget 
the things of the past that are comforting to his 
heart, and tend to establish his faith and make 
him stronger as a friend and servant of Christ. 
What he means is that he will not allow anything 
that may have happened in his past to hover about 
him like a ghost and cause his spirit to be less 
courageous for the work he has in hand to do. No 
past event shall hang as a millstone about his neck 
to hinder him in his Christian course. And in 
that we should imitate him. 

One night at bedtime a little child begged for 
the story of Daniel. 

"I am afraid," said the mother, "if I tell you 
the story, you will dream about the lions." 

"Oh, no," returned the little one, "I will dream 
about Daniel and leave out the lions." 

We should do that with our past. We should 
get all the courage we can from it, but yet let no 
roaring lions that may be in it prevent us from 



4 A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



taking advantage of the new opportunities which 
are ours to-day. 

There are two kinds of things we ought to forget 
in order to do our best in the new year. First, 
we ought to forget our failures. Not that we shall 
not learn by experience; if we gain wisdom by 
noting where we might have acted differently, and 
have thus changed defeat into victory, retrospec- 
tion is a good thing j but we should not for a mo- 
ment treasure up the memory of a failure in the 
past as any sort of an indication that we are going 
to fail this year. Let us forget past failures, and, 
remembering the infinite love and mercy of God, 
assured of the presence of the Holy Spirit, here 
and now, knowing that Christ is here to enter the 
New Year with us, and that through him we can 
do all things, let us go forth to battle and to vic- 
tory as tho there never had been a failure in our 
lives. 

On the other hand, if we are to do our best work 
in the year to come, it is just as necessary that we 
forget our past successes. People who live on 
their record never amount to much. The dead-line 
runs through that hour of a man's life in which he 
is satisfied with himself and looks with self-com- 
placency on what he has accomplished. It is the 
hungering, thirsting soul for which there is wait- 
ing a still greater abundance. It is the stretching- 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



5 



forward people, who see prizes yet aloft in the 
sky, who work wonders in the world. There is no 
dead-line for anybody for whom the future holds 
more intense struggles than the past. 

This is a very critical point for every one of us. 
If we enter upon this series of meetings with a sort 
of self-satisfaction, and expect to feel complacent 
at the end whether through God's grace we win 
souls or not, then we shall not be of much value in 
this great campaign which we open to-night in the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord. But if it seems 
to each of us — as it ought, no matter what our past 
successes as soul-winners may have been — that, 
compared with the tender love of Christ for us and 
in the light of his infinite sacrifice on our behalf, 
what we have done hitherto is very small and in- 
significant, and if there is in our hearts a great 
longing to win poor sinners to know the riches of 
the forgiveness of sins which we have found our- 
selves, then there is hope that Christ may be able 
to use us to his honor and glory. 

Exceedingly interesting and forceful is this 
splendid figure which Paul uses to indicate the in- 
tensity with which he is determined to pursue the 
Christian life. You will notice that it is a stronger 
figure than that presented in the Old Version. 
There it is "reaching forth." Well, a man may 
reach forth while he remains standing, and with- 



6 A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR 

out changing the position of his body, except the 
arm and hand ; but " stretching forward" suggests 
something into which the whole man enters. It 
is the figure of the athlete, the stretching eager 
body of the runner with eye on the prize. It gives 
one the impression of a whole-souled earnestness, 
and that above everything else is what we need on 
the human side in our great work of winning men 
and women to Christ. Ordinary abilities become 
charged with marvelous power when a man throws 
his whole heart and soul into the service of God so 
that the Holy Spirit illuminates his common gifts 
and makes them glorious and efficient. The only 
difference between a bit of black carbon and a 
luminous lamp that makes the street bright as day 
at midnight is in the electricity which passes 
through the carbon. Often the only difference be- 
tween two church-members of equal gifts and op- 
portunities, the one constantly winning souls to 
Christ and doing helpful service for the Lord while 
the other seems only a respectable idler in the 
outer kingdom, is that one is like the dead carbon 
— moral, respectable, upright, but with no light or 
fire or power — and the other is so given over to 
God that the electricity of the Holy Spirit shines 
through word and face and deed until the words of 
Christ are realized again, " Ye are the light of the 
world." 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



7 



This leads us to another striking figure used in 
our text — the word "press." Paul says: "I press 
on toward the goal." You know at once where 
was the chief emphasis of Paul's life. The thing 
a man cares for most is the thing he presses. In 
this modern complex life of ours we are many- 
sided; we are variously related to society and to 
business. It can not be said of any one of us that 
we are simply one thing, and yet there is some 
one point where we put the emphasis. A business 
man has many investments, but there is some one 
business that either on account of his taste, or 
through the promise of speedy or great returns, 
he is most interested in, and he so presses that one 
thing that whenever you think of him it is in con- 
nection with that one business, because there is the 
chief emphasis of his business life. Now I take 
it that Paul felt that it was his highest duty and 
privilege to put the great emphasis of life on the 
fact that he was the friend and servant of J esus 
Christ. Incidentally Paul did other things. He 
had been a law student; he knew how to make 
tents — sometimes worked at it for years at a time 
after he was a minister; he was a good friend; 
for that day, he was a great traveler. But so 
tremendously did Paul put the emphasis of his life 
on this one thing that I imagine whenever a mem- 
ber of the Jewish Sanhedrin, or a business man of 



8 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



Ephesus, or a Roman soldier, or a politician spoke 
of Paul, it was as "Paul the Christian." Let us 
ask ourselves very earnestly to-night : " Where am 
I putting the emphasis of my life? On business? 
On politics? On circles of pleasure? On social 
competitions? Where?" It is a very important 
query. Do not thrust it aside. 

There can be no doubt where the emphasis 
ought to be. It ought to be with us, as with Paul, 
that the point where we press hardest is toward 
the great goal of fulfilling our duty to Christ. If 
we are not doing that, if money-making comes first, 
and so far first that our Christianity is a poor 
second, we ought to repent before God this very 
hour. If pleasure, or social success, or personal 
pride, or self-indulgence of any kind, is the thing 
of first importance with us, so that loving worship 
and service for Christ is almost distanced in the 
race, then God pity us, and arouse us out of the 
slumber that threatens us with eternal disaster ! 

And now, one thing more. "One thing I do," 
says the apostle. Are we ready to say that for the 
next month? Incidentally we shall have to do 
other things. We shall have to cook and eat and 
drink as usual ; most of you will have to go about 
your regular work of life. But it is possible that 
a great overmastering purpose may so enter into 
us and possess us that whether about our work, or 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



9 



at our meals, or in our daily meeting with our fel- 
lows, we shall still be doing only one thing. The 
one thing I call you to is the salvation of souls. 
It is the greatest thing in the world. Some one 
inquired of Dr. Lyman Beecher in his old age: 
" Doctor, you have lived a long time, and seen and 
known many things; what do you consider the 
main thing?" The grand old hero of twoscore 
and more revivals answered without a moment's 
hesitation, "It is not theology; it is not contro- 
versy; it is saving souls" 

God help us to believe that to our finger-tips! 
Let us believe it so thoroughly that we shall be 
willing to do anything, however insignificant or 
humble it may seem, that may help to bring about 
the revival of God's grace in our hearts. People 
that are thoroughly mastered by their purpose are 
not oversensitive or particular where they are put 
to work. 

A few years after the war military titles were 
very cheap and common. A story is told of an old 
farmer who had a considerable number of men at 
work in his hay-field. A traveler, stopping to 
converse with the farmer, was interested in the lat- 
ter' s remark that most of his men were old soldiers. 

"Indeed ! Are any of them officers?" 

" Two of them. One of them over there was a 
private, and that fellow* beyond was a corporal; 



10 A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



but the man beyond him was a major, and that 
man away over in the corner was a colonel." 

" Indeed ! Are they good men?" 

"Well," said the farmer, "that private is a first- 
class man, and the corporal is pretty good, too." 

"But how about the major and the colonel?" 

"The major's so-so," said the farmer. 

"But the colonel?" 

"Well," answered the farmer, "I ain't a-going 
to say a word against a man who was a colonel in 
the war, but I've made up my mind to one thing 
— I ain't a-going to hire any brigadier-generals!" 

God give us such supreme love for Christ, such 
a longing to win our neighbors to know the good 
things that await them in the Gospel, that we shall 
be ready to fall into the ranks anywhere where we 
may give, it may be, only " a cup of cold water" 
in his name. Don't think you can do nothing be- 
cause you do not seem to be specially gifted. 
Every one of us can pray, and prayer is our great- 
est weapon. 

A young man was saved on his dying bed. Once 
saved he began to think of his companions, thought- 
less young fellows just such as he was before he 
was led to see that he needed a Savior. He asked 
his pastor what he should do for them. The pas- 
tor bade him pray for them and put their names 
upon a card so that he might not forget any one of 



A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



11 



them. This the sick man did, and his death- 
chamber was hallowed by his many prayers. He 
died, and soon after his death the church over 
which his pastor ministered was revived. During 
the revival every one of the young men so ear- 
nestly prayed for was converted. 

If every one of us shall press forward earnestly 
to do this one thing, then the conditions of Pente- 
cost will be met again, and night after night we 
shall be with one accord in one place, and the sa- 
ving mercy of God will come upon the people. 

Let us see to it that this " accord" be not broken 
by lack of harmony. Webster says that " accord" 
means "agreement in pitch and tone." You may 
have a hundred singers, or a hundred instruments 
of music, but if three or four of them are out of 
pitch and tone there will be discord instead of 
harmony. Let the prayer of each one be, " God 
save me from being the discordant note that shall 
render powerless the love and faith and service of 
all the rest!" 

A great concert can only be brought about by a 
great deal of individual practise on the part of the 
musicians. Each one must come from many pri- 
vate rehearsals prepared to do his own work. So 
in the secret closet, where we open our hearts to 
God in confession and repentance and faith, we 
must prepare ourselves so that when we come to- 



12 A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR. 



gether in the house of God it will not be the bring- 
ing together of dry bones, or dead brands, but the 
bringing together of living souls, of burning spirits, 
of hearts illuminated by the Holy Spirit. On such 
a meeting the gift of tongues will come again. No 
man or woman or child will come into this place 
without feeling that in deed and in truth they have 
heard the Gospel in their own tongue, and the old 
cry of Pentecost, " What must we do to be saved?" 
will gladden our hearts, and cause all the bells of 
heaven to ring for joy. 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the 
prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at 
the end of these days spoken unto us in his son. " — Heb. i. 
1, 2 (Rev. Ver.). 

God has never ceased to speak to mankind. He 
spoke to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden face 
to face. He came to Abraham in the desert in the 
form of an angel. He spoke to Moses on Mount 
Horeb from the flames of the burning bush, and 
on Mount Sinai from the enveloping clouds. He 
spoke to Elijah in the roar of the wind, the crash 
of the thunder, and "the still, small voice." He 
spoke to Joseph and Daniel and Ezekiel in dreams 
and visions. For hundreds of years he spoke to 
the people through the mouth of his prophets. 
Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and 
Hosea, J onah and Habakkuk, Joel and Amos and 
their compeers, were the voices of God crying 
aloud his message. 

All these great personalities were also the 

heralds to make way for the coming of Christ, by 

whom God is speaking unto us to-day. Every 

13 



14 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



one of the prophets looking down through the mist 
of the distant years saw with more or less clear- 
ness the coming of the Son of God who was also to 
be the Son of man. At last, in the fulness of time, 
Christ came in the fulfilment of prophecy. Jesus 
himself declares that the Old-Testament Scrip- 
tures are fulfilled in him. The whole Bible, Old 
and New Testaments taken together, might be 
compared to the progress of a single day. The 
sunrise would be in Genesis, with its early twi- 
light of creation and its rays of divine hope in the 
promises of God to Abraham. The morning ad- 
vances through the times of the patriarchs, the 
wanderings in the wilderness, and the entrance to 
the promised land. The sun climbs high in the 
heavens in the songs of David and in the splendid 
vision of the Savior in the chapters of Isaiah, all 
pointing to the high-noontide of revelation in 
the person of Jesus Christ. On through the 
advancing hours of the glorious afternoon we 
turn through the matchless letters of Paul 
and the heart-searching epistles of Peter and 
James and John, till we reach the sunset hour 
of the vision from Patmos in the book of Eeve- 
lation. 

The Bible is a whole. You can not carve it in 
pieces and take out here and there a section to suit 
your taste or inclination. You can not have noon 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



15 



and evening without morning. There was never 
yet a sunset without a sunrise. Blot out the Old 
Testament and the New Testament is untranslata- 
ble ; but keep both together and it is the simple 
« story of God's conversations with his children, and 
a wayfaring man tho a fool need not err there- 
in. Jesus fully recognized the Old Testament. 
He put his divine seal on all the twilight and 
morning of Scripture record and prophecy. The 
servant is not greater than his Lord. Let us cling 
to the blessed old Book. As J oseph Choate, the 
great lawyer, said at Dr. Storrs's anniversary : "If 
we can have only one book left, let us cling to 
that." Dr. Watkinson said, in speaking at the last 
General Methodist Conference, that when he was 
in Cologne he looked into that great cathedral. 
When he went in the early morning he saw that 
the eastern window was lighted up and all the 
other windows were dark and obscure. When he 
went at noon he found that some of the other win- 
dows had turned to ruby and gold, and that they 
flamed out in prophets, in angels, and saints. And 
then, when he went at sunset, he saw that the 
other windows were lighted up by the setting sun. 
And those that looked black in the morning, at 
night were illuminated and glorified until they 
looked like windows into heaven. It is a good 
deal like that, declared the great preacher, with 



16 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



the Bible. There are dark pages in it, but in the 
process of the sun first one page is lighted up and 
then another, and where men could see only ob- 
scurity there flames out magnificent meaning, with 
Jesus Christ always standing in the midst. There 
was truth for Chrysostom's day; truth for Ber- 
nard's; truth for Luther's; truth for Wesley's; 
and we of to-day are finding the exact truth for 
our particular generation and the singular condi- 
tion of things in which we find ourselves. And 
before this world is done, there won't be a dark 
page left in the Book, but every bit of it will be 
illuminated, and the temple filled with the glory of 
God and with the gladness of men. 

God is still speaking to us through his Son. 
When Jesus was on earth he held converse with 
his disciples face to face and spoke to wayside ac- 
quaintances and multitudes of strangers with the 
greatest simplicity and directness. But as the 
time for his great sacrifice of himself as a sin- 
offering for the guilt of the world drew near, he 
assured his disciples that after his departure he 
would send the Holy Spirit, not only to comfort 
them, but to bear witness of him and to bring his 
words to the remembrance of human hearts. We 
live in the days of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus 
Christ is speaking to us through him. The Holy 
Spirit has many ways of bringing the words of 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



17 



Christ to our remembrance so that they shall give 
us comfort. 

A recent writer tells of a friend who lately re- 
ceived in a dream just such a message as our calm 
thought tells us might well be the comfort that all 
our loved ones who have gone on before us into 
heaven would whisper in our ears could we but 
hear them. This friend had lost, by sudden death, 
one that was very dear to him, a friend and pupil, 
a sweet Christian boy. The bereavement weighed 
heavily upon his heart for many days. A week 
or two after the funeral he had a dream. He 
dreamed that he sat by his desk in his study, and 
Steve (that was the young pupil's name) entered 
the door. His appearance did not startle him; 
for altho he was conscious that he had died, 
yet it seemed perfectly natural for him to come to 
see him again. He advanced across the room, and 
stood between his teacher's knees, close up to his 
chair, placing his hands upon the man's shoulders 
and looking into his face. Nothing was said for a 
time, and then the teacher burst out weeping. 
After a moment he said to the boy, " Oh, Steve, I 
would give everything, all that I possess in this 
world, if I could only have you back again." The 
pupil leaned over, folding his arms about his 
teacher's neck, and resting his head upon the older 

man's shoulder, and said very earnestly and ten- 
2 



18 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



derly, yet with almost a reproof in his tones : " Oh 
no! no! no! you don't understand; you don't un- 
derstand. " That was all. But the good man woke 
up happy, and with more spiritual insight and 
comfort than he had had since the boy's death. 
He felt that all was well, and that his sorrow was 
all of ignorance, and that some time he would 
understand. 

But such visions as that do not come to unpre- 
pared hearts. It is only a heart softened and mel- 
lowed by the showers of divine grace and instructed 
in the hope of the Gospel that is so fitted that the 
Holy Spirit can thus comfort it. The Holy Spirit 
uses the promises of God's Word and the words of 
Christ for the salvation of men. If this be true, 
how important it is that we should make ourselves 
acquainted with the Word of God, and with the 
life and teachings of Jesus, so that we shall 
be susceptible to the impressions of the Holy 
Spirit. I fear that the very helpfulness of 
the Sunday-school has led parents in our time 
to make the great blunder of depending almost 
entirely upon it as the moral and religious 
teacher of their children. However good the 
Sunday-school may be, there never was a Sun- 
day-school yet so rich in Bible instruction 
and moral and religious teaching as to make 
it sufficient to take the place of daily religious 



THE VOICE OF GOD, 



19 



teaching on the part of father and mother in 
the home. 

Dr. Hillis, of Chicago, declares that for more 
than a generation parents have been farming out 
their children for moral training. The time was 
when the youth of the country were trained pri- 
marily at home, and only incidentally in the 
Sunday-school. But the time has come when the 
moral instruction of the children is confined to a 
brief half-hour upon one day in seven. In the old 
days the parents rose up early, and trained the 
child to commit to memory not simply a golden 
text, but whole chapters of the Bible ; not to read 
a lesson leaf, but a book, bearing upon the theme. 
The college professors and presidents, the states- 
men and preachers, the men who have molded so- 
ciety during the past generation, received in Chris- 
tian homes patient, thorough, and long-continued 
Bible instruction. Daniel Webster used to say 
that his standard of oratorical excellence was de- 
rived from such Scriptures as the eighth Psalm 
and the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. Carlyle said 
that he owed everything to the thorough mastery 
of about a hundred chapters in the Bible. Buskin 
declares that his beautiful diction is traceable to the 
fact that his mother required him to commit to 
memory whole chapters of the New Testament, and 
many chapters of Moses, David, and Isaiah. " But 



20 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



in the stress and haste of modern life the religious 
instruction of children has sadly suffered. In the 
morning, business men have not time for the moral 
training of their children. In the evening they 
have no strength. On Sunday they excuse them- 
selves on the ground that they leave ethics and re- 
ligion to the Sunday-school." But we must all 
confess, after we have given the Sunday-school its 
highest meed of praise, that it is entirely insuffi- 
cient to take the place of that quiet, personal, 
heart-searching conversation concerning spiritual 
things which some of us remember, and will re- 
member until we stand in judgment before God, as 
hours of spiritual vision when father or mother 
talked to us before the open Bible in our own 
childhood. 

Let us not make the fatal mistake of being less 
careful of the moral and spiritual education of our 
children than we are of their physical and intellec- 
tual training. We personally see to it that they 
have good food for their bodies, and if they do not 
have appetite for it, or take sufficient of such nour- 
ishment, the physician responds to our anxious 
call. But multitudes of children who are thus 
kindly and carefully looked after in physical 
matters are left to be little better than spiritual 
orphans. 

Parents leave their children thus untaught and 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



21 



untrained in God's Word, and then wonder why it 
is that the Holy Spirit does not speak to their 
children's hearts with such power as to win them 
to salvation. The Holy Spirit will take advantage 
of any seed of divine truth which he finds in our 
hearts. Jesus was ever doing that when he was 
here on earth. Take, as an example, the poor, 
wicked woman at the well in Samaria. Sinful 
tho she was, she was well instructed in the relig- 
ion of her fathers. She knew the differences 
in the belief of the Jews and Samaritans, and had 
studied the prophecies concerning the coming of 
the Messiah. It was that early teaching that made 
it possible for Jesus to find his way to the secret 
places of her heart. He discovered what no one 
else had dreamed of, that hidden away under all 
her sinful life were fine feelings, serious thoughts, 
deep longings for better living, tho they would 
have all amounted to nothing if she had not met 
Jesus. But when Christ came these hidden seeds 
of truth, stowed away it may have been by a 
loving mother, were brought to light by him, 
and her desert life blossomed as the rose; and 
instead of the thorn of worldliness came up the 
fir-tree of faith, and instead of the briar of 
disobedience came up the myrtle-tree of obedi- 
ence and love. God help us to plant in the 
minds and hearts of our children the Word of 



22 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



God which may be used by the Holy Spirit unto 
their salvation ! 

But no doubt I am speaking to many who have 
been taught in God's Word and to whom God has 
spoken by the Holy Spirit, convicting you of sin, 
of righteousness, and of judgment, and yet you 
have closed your ears against the voice of God and 
refused him your obedience. 

Perhaps some one replies, " The way of salvation 
does not appeal to my reason, and there are so 
many things commanded that seem unnecessary to 
me. I can not understand how the soul may be 
uplifted and saved in that way." 

The Scripture declares, "Obedience is better 
than sacrifice." When Nicodemus could not un- 
derstand even the first principles of spiritual 
things, Jesus said to him that as " the wind blow- 
eth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor 
whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of 
the Spirit." 

Obey the voice of God. Yield your heart to the 
Lord Jesus. Turn away from your sins, ceasing 
to do them, and confess Jesus as your Savior and 
King. Light will fall upon your path, and glo- 
rious rewards will come to you as you obey him. 

The story is told of an Eastern king who was 
once in need of a faithful servant and friend. He 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



23 



gave notice that lie wanted a man to do a day's 
work, and two men came and asked to be employed. 
He engaged them both for certain fixed wages, and 
set them to work to fill a basket with water from a 
neighboring well, saying he would come in the 
evening and see their work. He then left them to 
themselves and went away. After putting in one 
or two bucketf uls one of the men said : 

" What is the good of doing this useless work ? 
As soon as you put the water in on one side, it 
runs out on the other." 

The other man answered: "But we have our 
day's wages, haven't we? The use of the work is 
the master's business, not ours." 

"I am not going to do such fool's work," replied 
the other ; and throwing down his bucket he went 
away. 

The other man continued his work till about 
sunset, when he exhausted the well. Looking 
down into it, he saw something shining at the bot- 
tom. Carefully letting down his bucket once more, 
he drew up a precious diamond ring. 

" Now I see the use of pouring the water into a 
basket," he exclaimed to himself. "If the bucket 
had brought up the ring before the well was dry, 
it would have been found in the basket. The labor 
was not useless after all." 

But he had yet to learn why the king had ordered 



24 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



this apparently useless task. It was to test their 
capacity for perfect obedience, without which no 
servant is reliable. At this moment the king came 
up to him ; and, as he bade the man keep the ring, 
he said : " Thou hast been faithful in a little thing ; 
now I see I can trust thee in great things. Hence- 
forth thou shall stand at my right hand." 

Shall you not be as wise as that servant? How 
many witnesses you have to the wisdom and good- 
ness and loving purpose of our King, Jesus Christ ! 
Nothing but good and blessing can possibly come 
to you by obediently answering to his call. 

It is possible that some are hearing the invita- 
tion for the last time. 

One Sabbath evening some years ago, at the 
Methodist church in Hempstead, Long Island, the 
pastor conducted a short after-meeting. He sang 
two verses of " The Sweet By-and-By" very ten- 
derly and effectively. 

After the service an old gentleman came up to 
the pastor and said : " If you will sing the hymn 
'The Sweet By-and-By' next Sabbath evening, I 
will be here." 

The pastor willingly gave the promise. 

The next Sunday evening a similar service was 
held after the regular evening service. The pastor 
told the people present that at the request of a 
gentleman present he would sing again the hymn 



THE VOICE OF GOD. 



25 



"The Sweet By-and-By." After the hymn had 
been sung an invitation for all those who wished to 
give their hearts to Christ was given. The pastor 
said to the old gentleman: "And won't you, too, 
accept the invitation to go forward?" 

The old man yielded to this appeal, and after a 
season of prayer in which he found the Lord to 
the joy of his soul, the pastor inquired his name. 

The reply was, "Joseph Hooker." It was none 
other than the hero of Lookout Mountain. 

He was asked if he would come to the regular 
church prayer-meeting on Friday night to relate 
his experience, and to tell to others what a dear 
Savior he had found. He consented, but on the 
Tuesday evening following he fell dead from heart 
disease. He had heard the last invitation, and, 
thank God ! he had accepted it. 

To-day is the day of salvation. If ye hear his 
voice, harden not your hearts. 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 

" Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man 
standing on the right hand of God. n — Acts vii. 56 (Rev. 
Ver.). 

Stephen's term of service as an official represen- 
tative of Jesus was not long, as men count time, 
but so perfect was his fidelity, so intense his devo- 
tion, so radiant his life with the spirit of his Mas- 
ter, that it burned for him a large and brilliant 
circle in the memory of the church. Stephen is 
one of the few Scripture characters about whom 
there are no regrets. There is no period of early 
persecution like Paul's, no flame of anger as in 
John's case, no days of gloomy doubt and unbelief 
as with Thomas, no sudden cowardice and denial 
as in the experience of Peter. Here is a lamp that 
burned clear — a nature so completely given up to 
God, a soul so enraptured with Jesus Christ, a 
personality so devoted to the bidding of the 
divine will, that no self-interest or stain or tarnish 
of sin remained to dim the luster of the heavenly 
light shining through. If we would be triumphant 

Christians, irresistible in the wisdom and spirit 

26 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



27 



with which we carry on our battles for the Master, 
there can be no better subject for our study. Al- 
tho Stephen was chosen not to be a minister, 
but a lay-worker, in the early church, he set about 
his work with such interest and enthusiasm that 
he was at once surrounded with people whose 
wicked hearts made them bitterly opposed to the 
new gospel of love and purity of which he was so 
shining an example. Altho we have no reason 
to believe that Stephen had been in public life in 
any way before or had had any experience as a 
public teacher, he was so full of faith, and so 
bright and clear in his Christian experience, and 
his heart so glowed with the presence of the Holy 
Spirit, that his opponents soon found that they 
had met more than their match, for, as the record 
says, " They were not able to withstand the wis- 
dom and spirit by which he spake." 

It is this clearness of faith, this vital Christian 
experience, this wisdom from heaven, this spirit of 
the ever-living God, which alone can make us con- 
quering Christians in our own day. "We may have 
our splendid churches, beautiful and well ap- 
pointed ; we may have our music which will charm 
the ear and delight the heart ; we may have elo- 
quence in the pulpit, and culture and respectability 
in the pews ; but all will be in vain in fulfilling the 
great purpose for which the church exists, unless 



28 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



the divine magnetism of that heavenly atmosphere 
which Stephen breathed is vitally present in our 
hearts and lives. All signs of earthly prosperity 
on the part of the church are a miserable and in- 
sufficient apology for the lack of the life of God. 
Any mere pride of church success, or enthusiasm 
for church leadership, is a painted fire compared 
to the fire of the Holy Ghost which ought to flame 
first on the altars of our individual hearts, and 
then flame forth in mighty conflagration in the 
house of God. As another has well said, our man- 
ufactured "waters" are miserable mockeries if sub- 
stituted for Heaven's River of the Water of Life. 
Our dainty confections can never take the place of 
God's wholesome bread. It is life of which our 
nerves are scant, more life and fuller life that we 
need, and which God is so willing to bestow. 

Events matured quickly in Stephen's experience. 
His enemies, unable to answer him, sought to ob- 
tain revenge by bringing him before the Council, 
and there, by bribed witnesses, they swore away 
his life. But on Stephen's part there was no hesi- 
tation. He saw the clouds gathering, and must 
have known there could be but one end to that 
storm of wickedness and wrath ; but in the midst 
of the bigotry and cruelty that surrounded him, 
even his enemies who sat in the Council and heard 
his wonderful plea for his Savior and his Lord, 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



29 



" fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it 
had been the face of an angel." 

Stephen was the man with the shining face. 
Luke, who writes the account, does not take time 
to tell us of the life behind that face, except as is 
indicated in the brief description of his charac- 
ter: "a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." 
But we know that back of that wisdom and irre- 
sistible moral force, back of that shining face, 
there was a hidden life of faith and prayer and 
communion with God. The quantity of our spiri- 
tual power is measured by the reservoir of the life- 
force that is "hid with Christ in God." Great 
spiritual battles are first fought and won in the 
secret chambers of the soul, in the closet of prayer, 
where the struggler wrestles with God as Jacob 
did with the angel at the old Jabbok ford. Luther 
unchained the Bible first in his study where his 
soul found the freedom of faith. Methodism and 
its revolution for righteousness had its first victory 
in Susannah Wesley's family prayers, and its next 
triumph in the little Holy Club at Oxford. There 
can be no victorious outward life in spiritual 
things except there first be the inward conquest. 
How clearly this is illustrated in the life of Jesus ! 
Even the divine Savior felt the need of preparing 
for his public work of helpfulness and salvation by 
feeding in quiet those unseen forces which glorified 



30 A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



him before the multitude. He sought seasons of 
solitude, hours of silence, when his great soul gave 
itself up to meditation and intense communion 
with God. If this is true of our Master, how much 
more certain is our need of increasing the hidden 
supply upon which we may draw when we come in 
contact with those who know not Christ. If we 
are to have the shining face we must have the 
glowing heart ever filled with heavenly light. For 
what lives and glows in our heart's inner recesses 
will make itself known in our outward deeds. 

A gentleman of France, who had been delighted 
with the rapturous warblings of the nightingales 
of the forests of Sierra Morena, greatly desired 
to hear in the forests of his own estate the same 
entrancing music. No nightingale had ever been 
seen or heard within his woods, but he set himself 
to woo their presence. He reasoned that if he 
should make his grounds perfectly adapted to the 
comfort and happiness of nightingales, the un- 
known messengers of nature would in some way 
carry the news to the sweet singers and they would 
come. He undertook to make a perfect home for 
nightingales, and trusted nature to do the rest. 
Accordingly he banished cats and hawks and 
screech-owls, for the nightingale nests low and 
sings long, and is an easy prey to all these enemies 
of birds. He caused many places in the woods to 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



31 



be scratched up and had a kind of earth-worms of 
which nightingales are peculiarly fond planted lib- 
erally in accessible spots. He searched the litera- 
ture of the world on the subject of nightingales and 
their habits, and every suggestion that pointed 
toward making a paradise for nightingales was at 
once put into practise. He waited a whole year, 
and not a note from a nightingale fell upon his 
ear. Another year passed by, and tho the prepara- 
tions for their comfort went on unceasingly, the 
invited guests remained aloof. But when the third 
springtime came, one night, as the shadows were 
darkening, his ear was delighted and his heart 
thrilled with the song of the nightingale. A single 
pair of birds had found their way to that choice 
retreat. But they were only the pioneers of multi- 
tudes that were to follow them. Before many 
springs had passed his woods were so vocal with 
the songs of these famous birds that his estate was 
known far and wide as the " Garden of the Night- 
ingales." 

Shall we not learn the sweet and beautiful les- 
son? If nightingales of tenderness, larks of joy, 
holy doves of peace are to sing in our hearts and 
make our lives vocal with heavenly music, it must 
be because every vicious lust and preying appetite 
and lurking passion of evil has been banished from 
the soul. Only a nature given up to be the garden 



32 A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



of God, prepared by faith and prayer for his com- 
ing, can be filled by the Christian graces. We can 
not have Stephen's power without Stephen's purity 
and consecration. But, thank God ! they are both 
possible to us. The same divine Lord who had 
made conquest of his soul, whose loving presence 
as a sacred guest in his heart gave him his shining 
face, is seeking to dwell in our hearts and bestow 
upon us all spiritual charms. 

To Stephen the heavens opened and he saw not 
only the glory of God, but his enraptured vision 
feasted most of all on his blessed Savior, whom he 
beheld "standing on the right hand of God." We 
do not come to a stern monarch with our plea for 
mercy and help, but to a tender-hearted heavenly 
Father whose glory is in no way displayed so 
magnificently as in his pity and compassion. The 
atonement was not the cause of God's love, but his 
love was the cause of the atonement. "God so 
loved the world that he gave his only-begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." 

Some of you may remember the beautiful pathos 
of Coventry Patmore's poem. He had found it 
necessary to discipline his little motherless boy 
and send him to bed. But it hurt him more than 
it did the child, as every true father or mother 
can understand, and after a while he could endure 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY, 



33 



the soreness of heart no longer and went to see the 
child. He found him asleep, with all the queer 
things that fill a little boy's pocket set out beside 
him. In his grief the little fellow had comforted 
his soul with these trinkets, and had fallen asleep 
in peace. The father writes : 

"So when that night I pray'd 
To God, I wept, and said : 
1 Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath. 
Not vexing thee in death ; 
And thou rememberest of what toys 
We made our joys, 
How weakly understood 
Thy great commanded good, 

Then, fatherly not less 
Than I whom thou has molded from the clay, 
Thou* It leave thy wrath, and say, 

"I will be sorry for their childishness. " ' " 

That melts us with its tender humanness, but 
there is something deeper and tenderer in these 
words of God through the mouth of his prophet : 
* I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgres- 
sions . . . and will not remember thy sins." 

But there is a still deeper note in the suggestion 

of Stephen's vision of Jesus at the right hand of 

God, standing there in fulfilment of the precious 

promise that when he arose from the grave and 

passed into the heavens he would become our High 
3 



34 A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



Priest and Intercessor before the throne of God. 
Before the Savior went away from his disciples he 
told them, to comfort them in their loneliness, that 
whatever they should ask in his name, that was 
good enough to be given, should be granted unto 
them. That promise has never been revoked and 
is true for us to-day. Our heavenly Father can 
not deny or refuse the intercession of him who was 
rich, and yet for our sakes became poor. We 
should never let the deep tenderness and pathos of 
those blessed words with which we close our pray- 
ers, "For Jesus' s sake," be lost out of our affec- 
tionate appreciation. 

A London cabman, who was a noble Christian 
man, came whirling around the corner into a side 
street, when a daring little lad ran recklessly in 
front of his horses. There was only one way 
to save the child, and that was to bring the 
horses to their haunches and to swing them 
to one side so quick that the driver was thrown 
to the curbstone, where he lay bleeding and 
dying. 

They picked him up tenderly and took him to 
the hospital, and sent for his wife. As she sat by 
him in her quiet grief, the nurse inquired : * Have 
you any children?" 

This question brought a fresh burst of tears. 
"We had one, little Teddy, but he is dead. My 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



35 



husband never rightly got over the loss of our only 
boy." 

When at midnight he became conscious, his first 
question was, " Was the little fellow hurt?" 

" No, the children are all safe ; it is you who are 
hurt." 

"Thank God! thank God!" 

His wife bending over him, said: "But I am 
afraid you have killed yourself, Tom." 

"Yes, but it was for little Teddy's sake. It 
was a near toucher, tho. A little boy with blue 
eyes, just like Teddy's, was making straight for 
the horses. I should have been over him in a mo- 
ment ! Ah, how glad I am I didn't !" 

If God has made the heart of a London cabman 
so large that "for little Teddy's sake," whose blue 
eyes had been long since closed in death, he could 
gladly give his own life to save from harm a little 
stranger child, with what confidence and boldness 
ought we to come to the mercy-seat and ask for- 
giveness and help of him who has bidden us ask 
what we will in the name of his Son who died on 
the cruel cross for us. 

No wonder that with such a vision rejoicing his 
heart, Stephen fell asleep with tender prayers for 
his enemies and rapturous hope for himself. The 
stones of his slayers were changed to jewels in his 
crown. There was no loneliness about such a 



36 A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 



death, for heaven's court opened to receive him, 
and his Lord was there to give him welcome. He 
who had said to his disciples only a little while 
before, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I 
will come again and receive you unto myself," had 
kept his promise and was at the trysting-place to 
meet his faithful friend. How blessed, how vic- 
torious, such a death ! 

But death without Christ is lonely indeed. The 
chaplain of the Pennsylvania state prison once re- 
lated to a friend that one of the most pitiful of the 
tragic sights he had seen there was the death of 
a big, burly young fellow who was serving out a 
term of ten years. 

One day, when the man had been suffering ter- 
rible agony from his disease, he suddenly asked : 
"Is there any hope for me?" 

The doctor, after a moment's hesitation, shook 
his head. 

"How long?" 

"But a brief time." 

From his pallet he could look through the grated 
window on a patch of dark sky. He stared at it 
and then cried out : " I can't ! I can't go out there 
alone! God is waiting." 

The chaplain told him God was merciful ; but 
his heart had been hardened against the Holy 
Spirit so long that he would not listen, and cried 



A LOOK INSIDE THE SKY. 37 



out: "Not alone! I can't go alone! Is nobody 
else dying in the jail? Send for my old father. 
Hell be glad to die with me." 

The chaplain told him of Christ and his love, 
but the ears of his spiritual understanding were 
deaf, and even when his breath was almost gone, 
he muttered again and again, "I can't face God 
alone !" 

His father was sent for. He was an old man, 
near to the grave. He would gladly have died for 
the boy who had so darkened his own life ; but he 
could only stand helpless beside the chaplain, list- 
ening to his son's moans of terror. 

At last the strong body lay still. The soul, ter- 
ror-stricken, full of horror in the face of deserved 
punishment, dreading above all else to meet the 
God against whom he had sinned, had gone out 
alone to meet its Maker. 

What a contrast to this sad picture is the vic- 
torious translation of Stephen ! Stephen, too, was 
conscious that God was waiting for him, but with 
delight, not terror, did he go forth to meet him. 
There was no sense of loneliness, for Christ was 
there to give him loving welcome. Surely every 
one of us is ready to cry out with Balaam : " Let 
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last 
end be like his." 



KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 



"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for 
thee to kick against the goad. And I said, Who art thou, 
Lord ? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou perse- 
cutest." — Acts xxvi. 14, 15 (Rev. Ver.). 

Eyekything conspires to make the conversion of 
St. Paul one of the most striking and vivid pictures 
in the history of mankind. The keenness of his 
mind, his logical temperament, the thoroughness 
of his intellectual training, the intensity of his ear- 
ly prejudice against Christianity, his conspicuous 
career as a persecutor of the new faith — all render 
his sudden transformation from a bitter enemy to 
a humble disciple and friend of Jesus Christ one 
of the marvels of the ages. 

The intellectual and moral character of Paul 
makes it impossible to believe that he was duped 
or deceived. Paul was no dreamer or mere specu- 
lator in theories of religion. He was a hard- 
headed and intensely practical man. Any one who 
will read Paul's writings will be ready to admit 
that he was a man of robust and powerful mind. 

The fact was that Paul was suddenly confronted 

38 



KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 39 



with the great supernatural truth of the Gospel. 
The risen and glorified Christ revealed himself to 
this earnest but bitter and bigoted young man, and 
all his unbelief and hatred of Christ and Chris- 
tianity went down in a moment, never to appear 
again. To Paul that hour was the most wonderful 
and glorious in his history. Years afterward, 
when he stood before Agrippa and Festus, he re- 
counted confidently and lovingly the events of that 
day when on the way to Damascus the Lord had 
first revealed himself to him, and with great joy 
and pride exclaimed at the conclusion of his de- 
fense, "Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not 
disobedient unto the heavenly vision." 

The words of Christ to Paul on the Damascus 
road were not flattering. They recalled a simple 
scene which Paul had no doubt witnessed many 
times that very day — an ox, goaded by his driver, 
kicking back angrily against the sharp prick in the 
ox-goad which the driver carried, only to wound 
himself the deeper. There is nothing in the Bible 
to minister to our egotism or sense of self-suffi- 
ciency. "We are assured everywhere that our self- 
righteousness is but filthy rags in the sight of 
God. We are told that we are never in so pitiable 
a condition as when in our arrogant pride we 
consider ourselves rich and having need of noth- 
ing. The Lord declares that that is the time when 



40 KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 



we are poor and blind and naked. "We are farthest 
away from salvation when, dead in trespasses and 
in sins, we are unconscious of our great and terri- 
ble need of divine forgiveness. 

To any who are thus asleep in the midst of 
awful danger, who are congratulating yourselves 
that you are not so bad as many others, and have 
not such imperative need of a Savior as some 
whom you deem more unfortunate sinners, in the 
words of divine truth I would shout in your ears 
heaven's alarming rebuke, "Awake thou that sleep- 
est, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine 
upon thee !" Oh, that it might be with you as it 
was with Paul on that day when heaven's light 
poured about him, and broke down all his pride 
and left him a trembling, humble seeker after sal- 
vation ! 

But the great message of all is couched in these 
words of Jesus, " It is hard for thee to kick against 
the goad." There is a truth in that statement 
which I pray God the Holy Spirit may help me to 
bring so clearly to your minds and hearts that it 
may be to some of you "a savor of life unto life." 
The thought that burns in these words for me is, 
that altho the entrance upon a path of sin is 
like a wide gate, and tho the way to death is 
broad, yet at every step God has mercifully placed 
the pricks of warning and rebuke and punishment 



KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 41 



to sharply recall the poor sinner to the fact that 
he is on the wrong path, and to arouse within his 
soul forebodings of a judgment to come. 

We are assured by these words of Jesus that 
Paul had not been without these merciful prickings 
of the divine goad. No doubt when he listened to 
that wonderful address of Stephen — and his keen 
mind could not help but appreciate the clearness 
with which Stephen traced the hand of God in the 
history of mankind from Abraham down to the 
fulfilment of all the prophecies in the death and 
resurrection of Jesus Christ — it was hard for his 
prejudice to stand out against this logical and 
powerful appeal to his reason. And when he saw 
the undaunted courage of Stephen, beset by foes 
upon every hand, and beheld his face shining like 
an angel, it was hard to believe that there was not 
something supernatural, something divine, giving 
support to this heroic young man in his great 
emergency. And then the great test came. Paul 
was present when the bitter wrath of the mob could 
not be restrained longer, and they hurled their 
cruel stones against the unresisting form of that 
gentle Christian hero. Paul saw him kneeling 
down and lifting his bruised and blood-stained face 
toward the sky. Paul heard first his triumphant 
shout, " Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the 
Son of man standing on the right hand of God," 



42 KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 



and afterward his tender pleading for his enemies, 
"Lay not this sin to their charge." It must have 
been hard for Paul to kick against the goad in that 
hour. There he stood consenting to this young 
man's death. The men who were murdering him 
had laid down their outer garments at his feet, and 
Stephen's tender prayer was for him as much as 
for them. No doubt his aroused conscience told 
him that there must be something noble and divine 
about a religion that could take away from a man's 
soul, when suffering such cruel provocation, all 
desire for vengeance, and all anger, and give such 
peace and victory over the sense of pain and the 
fear of death. 

My unconverted friends, have you not known 
what it was to kick against the goad like that? 
Surely you must have known some Christian 
friends who so lived in the spirit of Christ that 
you have not been able to doubt their honesty, or 
the reality of the religion which strengthened and 
comforted them. Some of you have had devoted 
Christian parents. There was that noble father 
whose rugged Christian honesty has been a sort of 
sheet-anchor which has never permitted you to 
drift entirely away from your childhood's faith. 
There was that tender, gentle mother, who taught 
you to pray "Now I lay me down to sleep"; she 
who sang Christian lullabies about the gateway of 



KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 43 



your opening consciousness and followed the way T 
ward steps of your advancing years with her holy 
benediction. You can not doubt the sincerity and 
reality of her Christian life. Ah, there has been 
a goad it has been hard for you to kick against. 
Again and again the memory of that loving face 
has called you to strict account. God grant it may 
nQt be in vain ! 

Some of you have been pricked deeply by the 
departure of friends who have gone away into the 
skies, leaving a shining pathway behind them that 
has not only beckoned you to follow, but has made 
your own path of selfishness and worldliness seem 
darker and more unsatisfactory than ever. Some 
of you have had little children of your own whom 
you loved more than your own lives, and they have 
sickened and died out of your arms, and beside 
the little coffin that seemed to hold your own ach- 
ing heart you have listened with quickened ears 
and a new intelligence to the words of Jesus: 
" Suffer the little children to come unto me, and 
forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." And as the minister came to the words, 
" In heaven their angels do always behold the face 
of my Father which is in heaven," your heart has 
cried out after them, and you have said : " I must 
not miss heaven! I must follow my darlings 
thither! I must find them again!" Ah, you 



44 KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 

know, and the tender Christ knows, it has been 
hard for you to kick against these goads, and go 
back again into the path of indifference and sin. 
If you are lost at last, if in the great day of judg- 
ment you are shut out in bitter remorse and ever- 
lasting loneliness from those loved ones who are 
inside heaven's gate, it will not be because God 
has not faithfully warned you, and rebuked you, 
and pricked you to the very heart, again and again, 
in seeking to turn your steps from the way of 
death. 

But, alas ! it is the tragedy of human life that, 
hard as it is, you may kick against the goad— 
tho it hurt you, tho it wound you sore — until 
you harden your soul against the merciful warn- 
ings of God. Do not, I beg you, seek to crush 
out the conscience that rebukes you for your 
sin and prompts you to make your peace with 
God. There may come a day when you would 
give everything you possess if you could only 
make that seared conscience as tender again as 
of yore. 

" ' Good-by, * I said to my conscience — 

'Good-by for aye and aye, ' 
And I put her hands off harshly, 

And turned my face away ; 
And conscience, smitten sorely, 

Returned not from that day. 



KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 45 



" But a time came when my spirit 

Grew weary of its pace ; 
And I cried : * Come back, my conscience, 

I long to see thy face. ' 
But conscience cried : 'I can not ; 

Bemorse sits in my place. 

And remorse often comes too late for remedy. 

A sad thing happened not long ago in the Alps. 
A young physician had determined to reach the 
heights of Mont Blanc. He accomplished the 
feat, and the little village of Chamouni was illu- 
minated in his honor; the flag was flying from the 
hut on the mountainside — that told the story of 
his victory. But after he had ascended, and de- 
scended in safety as far as the wayside hut, he 
wanted to be freed from the rope, and insisted that 
he could go alone. The guide remonstrated with 
him, told him it was not safe ; but he was tired of 
the rope, and declared that he would be free of it. 
The guide had to yield. The young man had gone 
only a short distance when his foot slipped on the 
ice, and he could not keep himself from sliding 
down the inclined icy steeps. The rope was gone, 
so the guide could not help him or hold him back, 
and on a shelving- piece of ice, far below, he met a 
cruel and awful death. The bells had rung, the 
village had been illuminated in honor of his suc- 
cess ; but, in spite of it all, in a foolish and wicked 



46 KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 



moment he refused to be guided; lie was tired of 
the rope. 

Are any tired of the rope of God's law and the 
restraints of his grace? Are you kicking against 
the goad that would arouse you to your danger, 
and scorning the hand of the Guide — that living 
hand that was pierced with nails on the cross, that 
is outstretched to lead you in paths of righteous- 
ness and safety? Do not, I plead with you, make 
such a fatal decision ; but rather follow the exam- 
ple of Paul, who, when he saw how wrong he had 
been, cried out trembling, "Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do?" 

The last time Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, was 
out of his bed until they placed him in his coffin, 
was when he went, sick and weary, to speak to the 
young Baptists of Boston, and his dying message 
to those young people was: "Never say no to 
God." The great-hearted man went on to illus- 
trate it by a missionary anecdote. He told how, 
when William Carey, the great pioneer missionary 
of the century, died, some one preached a sermon 
concerning him, in which he made the strange re- 
mark that Carey was inconstant, that he did not 
know his own mind. To think, said Dr. Gordon, 
that any one should say that Carey did not know 
his own mind; Carey, who was not only the great- 
est missionary, but one of the greatest scholars, of 



KICKING AGAINST THE GOAD. 47 



the century, who translated the Bible into some- 
thing like twenty-six dialects, and who gave nearly 
all his wealth to missions. How Carey's friend 
came to the conclusion that he was inconstant was 
this : Carey had acknowledged that he had left his 
business to become a missionary to the heathen 
because he could not say no ; he went to India be- 
cause he could not say no ; he engaged himself in 
the translation of the Bible because he could not 
say no; and all his life he had done things be- 
cause he could not say no. He meant that he 
could not say no to God. He could say no to the 
world, the flesh, and the devil; he could say no to 
his own heart's desires, to his own fleshly allure- 
ments ; but could not and would not say no to God. 

My friends, I bring you this same message, and 
I plead with you that you too will refuse to say no 
to the tender invitation of the Savior. Yield your 
heart to him and, it may be trembling like Paul, 
and groping in the dark at first as he did, yet 
humbly and trustingly, say, " Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do?" 



A WAKM HAND-GRASP FOR THE MAN 
IN THE DARK. 

"And Ananias departed, and entered into the house; 
and laying his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, 
even Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou 
earnest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, 
and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And straightway there 
fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his 
sight ; and he arose and was baptized ; and he took food 
and was strengthened."— Acts ix. 17-19 (Rev. Ver.). 

What a transformation is here presented in the 
person and spirit of Paul ! Only three days ago 
he was the pompous representative of the cruel 
government in its bitter persecution of the despised 
Christians. He was engaged in this infamous 
work not because he was drafted into it, but be- 
cause his heart was hot with anger against them 
and he took delight in hunting them to the death. 
But what a change has come over him ! That won- 
derful vision before which he fell to the ground on 
the highway at noon, and the pleading voice of 
Christ making himself known to Paul so clearly 

and reasoning with him with so much tenderness, 

48 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



49 



have broken his heart and scattered all his unbe- 
lief to the winds. To his pleading inquiry, 
"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" there is 
an immediate response. 

Some of you have known for a long time that 
you were sinners against God, and that you were 
wickedly rebelling against him, and the duty of 
repenting of your sins and making confession of 
Christ has been pressed upon you by the Bible, by 
the preacher, and by the Holy Spirit acting on 
your own conscience ; but your prayer has been, 
"Lord, I pray thee have me excused." The way 
to hell is paved with prayers like that. That 
prayer never opened the door of mercy to a single 
soul. So long as that petition is on your lips you 
will go every day deeper into the gloom. Change 
about, and take the other tack, and let your 
trembling lips utter the words of Paul, "Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do?" That plea is 
a sure key with which to open the door of sal- 
vation. 

The immediate response to that appeal is : " Arise, 

and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what 

thou must do. And the men which journeyed 

with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but 

seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth ; 

and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man : 

but they led him by the hand, and brought him 
4 



50 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



into Damascus. And lie was three days without 
sight, and neither did eat nor drink." 

I am not surprised that Paul had no appetite for 
food during those days of blindness when he was 
groping his way out of the darkness and the quag- 
mires of sin in which he had been floundering, and 
climbing up toward the light and on to the solid 
rock of righteousness. You would not eat or drink 
or sleep, if you could only see as clearly as did 
Paul the awful wrong and wickedness of your sins 
against God ; if you could see as he saw that in 
your rejection of the Savior you have been stamp- 
ing contemptuously on the very cross of Jesus and 
counting the blood of the covenant an unholy 
thing. Better a thousand times these days of 
weakness and agony that are to issue in forgive- 
ness and salvation, than to go on in the path of sin 
with a strong body and a gay heart, filling up the 
cup of wrath that after a while will have to be 
drunk in unspeakable sorrow down to the bitter 
dregs ! 

But the loving Savior does not keep Paul long 
in the slough of despond. Living in another part 
of the city is a saint of God, a man who fears God 
and keeps his commandments, whose heart is sen- 
sitive to the Holy Spirit and in close intimacy 
and fellowship with Jesus Christ. " To him said 
the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Be- 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



51 



hold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto 
him, Arise, and go into the street which is called 
Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one 
called Saul, of Tarsus; for, behold, he prayeth, 
and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias 
coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he 
might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, 
Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how 
much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem ; 
and here he hath authority from the chief priests 
to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord 
said unto him, Go thy way ; for he is a chosen 
vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gen- 
tiles, and kings, and the children of Israel ; for I 
will show him how great things he must suffer for 
my name's sake." 

How lifelike is this quibble of Ananias about 
the dangerous character of Paul. It seems very 
silly in the mouth of Ananias, to hear him trying 
to instruct the Lord regarding Paul, as if he was 
ignorant concerning the very mission on whioh 
he was sending his servant. But with great for- 
bearance and tenderness the Lord tells Ananias to 
go his way and do his duty, and he will take care 
of the result. I would to God every one of us 
who are Christians could learn this lesson ! It is 
the old quibble, presented over and over again, 
concerning every call to duty which seems to the 



52 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



eye of our sense beyond the power of our unaided 
human ability to perform. 

Some monstrous sin, like the liquor traffic, gorg- 
ing itself on a hundred thousand of the fairest and 
brightest of our brothers and sisters every year, 
torturing them by inches, marring and poisoning 
and rotting their bodies, wrecking their minds, 
defiling and brutalizing their souls until, maimed, 
broken-hearted, and despairing, they are cast into 
a drunkard's hell — all this goes on before our eyes, 
and tho we loathe it and wish it were stopped, 
we take up with Ananias' s mumbling quibble, "It 
has the authority of the chief priests," and there- 
fore nothing can be done. Do you not suppose 
that God, who has said in his Word that " no 
drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God," and 
who gave his Son "to seek and to save the lost," 
knows all about the power of wickedness? It is 
for us to go our way in the name of our Master, 
expecting, not in our own strength, but abetted by 
the invincible power of God, to see this devil and 
every devil "fall like lightning from heaven." 

We may see also the folly of selecting some per- 
sons as beyond the power of Christ's mercy to save 
and redeem. Ananias could see in Paul only a 
creature to be feared. He remembered only his 
bloody deeds and evil reputation, and no doubt 
thought he would be thrusting his head into a trap 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



53 



if lie went to him on an errand of salvation. But 
Jesus Christ saw in him the man which his divine 
grace was to make of him. He saw him humbled 
and purified, with all his great capabilities devoted 
to righteousness — the mightiest force for Chris- 
tianity in his generation. 

Oh, I wish we could see humanity through 
Christ's eyes! We pass by our neighbors who 
have wicked habits that make them disagreeable 
and unlovable to us, and we scarcely think it worth 
while to undertake their salvation. But if we 
could only look underneath all these ugly and sin- 
ful habits, and apprehend the good it would be 
possible for these people to perform, the sweet and 
holy lives they might live if once won to Christ, 
with what earnestness and enthusiasm we would 
work for their salvation ! 

J ohn Buny an was a wretched, swearing, drunken 
tinker. If nobody had thought him worth saving, 
how much poorer would both earth and heaven be 
to-day ? 

Jerry McAuley was a drunken river thief and a 
jailbird, degraded and defiled by inheritance and 
by practise; but the man who had the spiritual 
vision and divine optimism which made him per- 
sist in securing the salvation of Jerry McAuley, 
put more than a thousand priceless jewels in the 
Savior's crown. 



54 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



John B. Gough was considered a hopeless 
drunkard. He was bankrupt in character and in 
purse. But a humble disciple of Christ saw the 
jewel underneath all the mud and defilement, and 
coveted him for the service of the Lord. How 
blessed the man who led John B. Gough to Christ, 
for he in turn won tens of thousands to right- 
eousness ! 

There is nothing too hard for God. "We go not 
to this war at our own charges. We may have on 
the whole armor of God, and with us constantly 
the presence of the Holy Spirit that shall make us 
more powerful than all that can be against us. 

Ananias, at last convinced and aroused to do his 
duty, "went his way and entered into the house." 
Let me urge upon you the necessity of putting the 
impressions of the divine Spirit at once into 
action. Holy meditations, hearts swelling with 
good desires, sympathy which even moves us to 
tears, are all wasted, even worse than wasted, if 
they do not communicate themselves to hand, and 
feet, and voice, and cause us to arise and " go our 
way, and enter into the house" where the oppor- 
tunity to do service for Christ awaits us. We 
ought to be very watchful for opportunities for ser- 
vice. Of Christians it is said : " They watch for 
souls as they that must give account." 

What great things sometimes turn on little 



A WARM HAND- OR ASP. 



55 



pivots. One day in the city an accident had hap- 
pened to a person which a doctor's skill could have 
instantly relieved ; and as the doctor, driving rap- 
idly to the help of the patient, came to the inter- 
section of the streets, he inquired of one standing 
there which way to take to the sufferer's house. 
The man pointed in the wrong direction, the doc- 
tor was carried far out of his way, and before he 
could get back the patient was dead. The oppor- 
tunity could not be recalled; the moment when a 
life might have been saved by a simple wave of the 
hand was gone forever. Christian friends, which 
way are you pointing to these people who are rap- 
idly passing on the way of life and are often in- 
quiring, "Which path shall I take?" 

A young man had a pen in his hand with the 
purpose of signing a pledge, but, on being told that 
the Christian lady who was urging him to take the 
path of safety herself drank wine, "he dropped his 
pen, and said, "If she drinks, I may." He went 
on his way of temptation unfortified, and stag- 
gered into a drunkard's grave. She had lost her 
great opportunity. 

When Ananias reached the house where Paul 
was, he entered upon his mission with rare skill 
and wisdom. One can not imagine a more beauti- 
ful method of leading a soul into the light than 
that taken by Ananias. Putting his hands on 



56 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord, even 
Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou 
earnest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive 
thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." 
The brotherly spirit and tenderness of sympathy 
expressed in his action and in his words must 
have been infinitely soothing and comforting to 
Paul's wounded heart. Christian work can not be 
done successfully in any other spirit than that. 
That same spirit of brotherly fellowship and lov- 
ing solicitude must possess our hearts and clothe 
us with a divine gentleness that will make us win- 
ning messengers for the Savior. 

In one of the battles of the war of the rebellion, 
a gunner fell across his gun with a mortal wound 
in his head, and over his lifeless body bent in de- 
spairing grief a forlorn, powder-smoked boy of 
fifteen. He had just kissed the lifeless face, and 
stood with quivering lips and heart-breaking grief 
gazing into the dear face that was stiffening in the 
grasp of death. The chaplain, just then coming 
up, heard the poor boy say : " He is dead, and I'm 
all alone now in the world." The last of his 
brothers had fallen, his father and mother were 
dead, and he was without friends or home. " No, 
you are not alone," said the chaplain, as he ten- 
derly put his arms around the heart-broken boy. 
That unloosed the fountain of his grief, and the 



A WARM HAND GRASP. 



57 



first tears began to flow down over his pow- 
der-stained cheeks. The Christian sympathy 
expressed in the good man's words and actions 
mellowed his aching heart and the thought of a 
new-found friend gave him relief. That brotherly 
act won that boy to Christ, and he lived to be a 
noble Christian man who has given in his turn the 
same brotherly embrace to many another disheart- 
ened soul. 

If we are to be soul-winners we must have the 
winning spirit — the love which forbears and for- 
gives, and suffers long and is kind ; the love which 
helps us to put ourselves in our brother's place 
and causes us to bring our message of good news 
with the spirit of gentle fellowship that will not 
give offense. We are not to drive men into the 
kingdom of God, but to win them ; and many times 
a spirit of brotherly kindness exhibited by us in 
temporal matters makes it possible for us to win in 
the higher realm of the soul. 

I remember the story of another chaplain in the 
army during the same war, who was passing over 
the field when he saw lying upon the ground a sol- 
dier who had been wounded. 

He happened to have his Bible under his arm, 
and he stooped down and said to the man: 
" Would you like me to read you something that 
is in the Bible?" 



58 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



The wounded man said: "I am so thirsty, I 
would rather have a drink of water." 

The chaplain hurried off, as quickly as possi- 
ble, and brought the water. 

After the man had drunk the water he said: 
" Could you lift my head, and put something un- 
der it?" 

The chaplain took off his own overcoat, rolled it 
up, and, tenderly lifting him, put it as a pillow 
for his tired head to rest on. 

"Now," said the man, "if I only had something 
over me; I am so cold." 

There was only one thing the chaplain could do, 
and that was to take his coat off and cover the 
man. As he did so, the wounded soldier looked 
up in his face and said : 

"For God's sake, if there is anything in that 
book that makes a man do for another what you 
have done for me, let me hear it," 

There is infinite meaning in that story. The 
world could not know God until it saw him in 
the face of Jesus Christ. And multitudes in 
our day are so carried away by worldliness, 
are so oppressed by the burdens or seduced 
by the pleasures and gayeties of life, that they 
will never see Jesus unless they see him in our 
lives. If they are to be won to the Lord, the 
divine brotherhood of Jesus must be in us and 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



59 



be thus used by the Holy Spirit for their sal- 
vation. 

As Ananias talked with Paul in this brotherly 
spirit, the scales fell from his eyes, and he entered 
into the light. The joy and power of the Holy 
Ghost came upon him. And on the first opportu- 
nity he proclaimed his new-found faith that J esus 
was the Son of God. 

To you who are not Christians, I want to lay 
emphasis on Paul's discovery of the divinity of 
Jesus. It is not a mere man whom we preach unto 
you. He took upon himself our flesh and was born 
under the law that he might redeem those that 
were under the law, and as the captain of our sal- 
vation he was made perfect through sufferings, 
being tempted in all points like as we are. But he 
was not a victim ; he was a heavenly Prince who 
put aside the glory of heaven that he might of his 
own accord bear our sins on the cross. He who 
met Saul the persecutor, on the way to Damascus, 
and, convincing his judgment and softening his 
heart, transformed him into Paul the Christian, is 
able to forgive your sins, to break the bondage of 
your iniquity, and lift you into the sweet atmos- 
phere of a holy life. 

You have heard many sermons like this, portray- 
ing the Scripture truth in these Bible stories, and 
have gone away as tho it were only a picture for 



60 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



your entertainment, and your life has gone on 
as before. God grant it may be different now! 
This Word of God may be infinitely more than a 
picture to you if you will open your heart to re- 
ceive it. 

An old woman was living in Scotland in the 
most abject poverty. It was understood in the 
community that she had a son in America who 
was prosperous, and her neighbors wondered that 
he would permit his mother to endure such suffer- 
ing. One day one of them ventured to ask about 
the matter. 

"Does your son never send you any money?" 

"No," reluctantly answered the mother; yet, 
eager to defend her absent boy, she said, " but he 
writes me nice long letters and sends me a pretty 
picture in almost every one of them." 

" Where are these pictures?" asked the neigh- 
bor. "May I see them?" 

"Why, certainly," answered the old lady. She 
hobbled to a shelf and took down the old Bible, 
and there between the leaves lay the "pictures" 
that her son had been sending her from America 
through all the years. 

What were they? Nothing more nor less than 
bank-notes, each for a considerable amount. Dur- 
ing all her time of need and poverty she had had 
lying there in abundance riches to satisfy all her 



A WARM HAND-GRASP. 



61 



wants. But in her ignorance she had only looked 
at the pictures and kept them because they were 
the reminders of her far-off son. 

Some of you have been treating the Bible that 
way. You have read or you have heard the minis- 
ter read these stories of redeeming love, and you 
have thought them pretty pictures, but have gone 
on with starving, sinful hearts as tho there was 
nothing else in them for you. O brother, sister, 
they are more than pictures — they are bank-notes, 
they are drafts on the mercy of heaven, and riches 
inexhaustible are in them for your soul! What 
Christ did for Paul he is ready to do for you. 
May this be the hour when your poverty shall pass 
away and your soul be made rich indeed ! 



A MAN WHO FAILED ONCE, BUT 
WON ON A SECOND CHANCE. 

" And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when 
they had fulfilled their ministration, taking with them 
John whose surname was Mark."— Acts xii. 25 (Rev. Ver. ). 

" Now Paul and his company set sail from Paphos, and 
came to Perga in Pamphylia : and John departed from them 
and returned to Jerusalem." — Acts xiii. 13 (Rev. Ver.). 

" And after some days Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us 
return now and visit the brethren in every city wherein 
we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they 
fare. And Barnabas was minded to take with them John 
also, who was called Mark. But Paul thought not good to 
take with them him who withdrew from them from Pam- 
phylia, and went not with them to the work. And there 
arose a sharp contention, so that they parted asunder one 
from the other, and Barnabas took Mark with him, and 
sailed away unto Cyprus ; but Paul chose Silas, and went 
forth, being commended by the brethren to the grace of 
the Lord. "—Acts xv. 36-40 (Rev. Ver.). 

"Take Mark, and bring him with thee : for he is useful 
tome." — 2 Tim. iv. 11 (Rev. Ver.). 

These brief Scriptures do not make a very long 
biography, but when we pause to read between the 

lines they tell a wonderfully interesting and sug- 

62 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



63 



gestive story concerning the experiences of John 
Mark. This young man was one of the earliest 
Christians. His mother's house was a hotel on 
the underground railroad of early Christianity. 
In the old slavery clays in this country there used 
to be what was known as " the underground rail- 
road, " along which slaves escaping from the South 
made their way with great secrecy and many fears 
toward Canada and freedom. On these routes were 
certain farmhouses owned by great-hearted men 
and women who were willing to run the risk of loss 
by making their homes houses of welcome for these 
poor wretches who were flying from slavery to lib- 
erty. The house of Mary, the mother of Mark, 
was such a home for the early Christians. There 
they were always sure of welcome and such com- 
fort as her house afforded. It was in this house 
that the Christians gathered to pray for Peter on 
that terrible night when he had been sentenced by 
Herod to die on the morrow. All through the 
hours of the night they prayed until Peter, having 
been rescued by the angel, sought out the house of 
Mary and knocked at the gate. When the little 
damsel Ehoda came down to open it and saw that 
it was Peter, her heart was so glad that she forgot 
even to open the gate, but ran back shouting at the 
top of her voice that their prayers were answered 
and Peter himself stood at the gate. Poor souls ! 



64 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



they could not believe it at first; it seemed too 
good to be true, and they feared lie was already 
dead and that this was his ghost. But it was 
Peter, sure enough, and that prayer-meeting broke 
up in great joy. 

It was a precious privilege to be brought up in 
a home like that, where the greatest men and wo- 
men among the early Christians were coming and 
going. To breathe such an atmosphere in one's 
youth is a glorious boon, and one who has had 
such an opportunity can never thank God enough 
for it. How many there are who owe a priceless 
debt of thanksgiving on account of the Christian 
homes in which they were born and reared. 

It seems very natural that John Mark, brought 
up in such a home, listening to the conversations 
of such men as Peter and Barnabas and Paul and 
Silas, should desire to give his own life to the 
ministry of Christ and become a bearer of this 
good news of salvation to those in distant lands. 
And so when Barnabas and Paul were about to set 
out on a great preaching tour he gladly joined 
them and entered hopefully on his career as a mes- 
senger of Jesus Christ. No doubt his mother Mary 
was both rejoiced and saddened to see him go — re- 
joiced that her son was to go forth in such noble 
company to be a witness for the Master, and sad- 
dened that she was left behind and should miss his 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



65 



dear presence in her daily life. O young man! 
think tenderly and deal generously concerning the 
mother who has remained at home watching and 
waiting while you with exulting heart have gone 
out on your life career. You have had your lonely 
and homesick hours, too, but the heaviest burden 
is carried by the hearts that stay at home. "When 
tempted to forsake the path of righteousness and 
walk in the way of sin, remember again that anx- 
ious, loving heart who sent you out with her 
prayer and benediction, and resolve to die sooner 
than say or do that which would bring a blush of 
shame to her pure face. 

Surely, any one prophesying of the future would 
have said that no one could have a better chance 
of winning an honorable and glorious place among 
the early Christian heroes than John Mark. But 
the prospect was soon sadly darkened. Only a 
brief period had passed, and they had just got well 
under way on their journey, when Mark abruptly 
terminated his association with his friends and 
teachers and returned home, greatly to the sorrow 
of Paul and Barnabas. We do not know why he 
took this course, but we know that his reasons were 
not satisfactory to Paul, and his conduct was such 
that this great missionary lost all faith in him and 
refused to have him in his company five years later 

when he had changed his mind and wished for the 

5 



66 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON. 



second time to enter on his vocation as a worker 
for Christ. 

It was doubtless a combination of reasons work- 
ing together which brought about the desertion of 
Mark and caused him to make shipwreck of the 
greatest opportunity of his life. He was very- 
young, and was perhaps at first attracted by the 
novelty of the journey and the strange habits and 
customs of the people they met; but this soon 
wore away and the hardship and danger remained. 
It could not have been for the lack of interesting 
experiences, for during the short term of his ser- 
vice he had witnessed the awful judgment on Ely- 
mas the sorcerer, and the glorious conversion of 
Sergius Paulus. Yet in spite of these manifesta- 
tions of the presence of God with them, and the 
mighty possibilities within the reach of their min- 
istry, Mark threw it all up and went home. "What 
motive can have turned him back ? Matthew Henry 
says, "Either he did not like the work, or he 
wanted to go see his mother." Quaint old John 
Trapp says that Mark left them because they were 
then to take a tedious and dangerous journey over 
the high mountains of Taurus, and, his ardor hav- 
ing evaporated a little, he sought his own ease by 
returning home. 

"Whatever was the cause, we may be sure that 
John Mark repented it many a long day thereafter. 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON. 



67 



A mother like his would rather have heard of his 
death in honorable service than to have seen his 
face as a coward and a deserter. It was five years 
before he saw Paul and Barnabas again. Think 
how much he lost in missing that opportunity for 
association with Paul through his most vigorous 
and fruitful years. There never was a college or 
theological school on the earth that would have 
been equal to the training, the inspiration, the 
soul-culture of five years of shoulder-to-shoulder, 
heart-to-heart fellowship with Paul in those glow- 
ing, blazing days of his missionary conquest ! 

Not only did he lose all this, but when the five 
years were passed, and God in his infinite mercy 
had roused him from his lethargy and defeat, and 
encouraged him to try again, he suffered the shame 
and humiliation of being refused association and 
fellowship by the greatest man of his age. And 
so that one foolish and wicked act, that one cow- 
ardly backsliding and desertion, cost him all pos- 
sibility of associating with Paul throughout the 
years of his greatest power as a minister. It was 
not until the great preacher was an old man that 
Mark was to know again his sympathy and love, 

I pray that the Holy Spirit may impress this 
lesson very deeply on the hearts that need it ! We 
can never in cowardice desert our post and refuse 
to do our duty without submitting ourselves to 



68 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



fearful loss and heavy penalty. Some of you have 
been reading your own autobiography in the story 
of John Mark. You, too, were called in your 
youth into the church of Jesus Christ. Tou re- 
joiced in the glad consciousness that your sins 
were forgiven and that you were chosen to bear 
witness for the Savior. Like young Mark you re- 
joiced in the associations of the church. You de- 
lighted in the talk of those who had long known 
Christ and whose ardent testimony roused your 
ambition to do valiant service for the Lord. You 
looked ahead for ten or twenty years or more and 
pictured yourself as a middle-aged man or woman, 
devoted to Christ, and as pure and holy in your 
fidelity to the service of the church as were those 
noble saints who had won your admiration and 
your confidence. Alas, that any shadow should 
ever have come over a life that had so bright a 
morning of Christian hopefulness and promise! 
But there came a time when you stood before your 
mountains and trembled for fear. The day came 
when you were called upon to endure hardness for 
the Master's sake, and your treacherous heart, like 
the foolish Israelites in the wilderness, longed for 
the leeks and onions and flesh-pots of Egypt, even 
with its bondage. And so you fell away. Not all 
at once, perhaps ; but step by step, little by little, 
you were drawn back into the world, until now it 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



69 



may be that jour heart is harder and you are far- 
ther away from God than before you first pledged 
him your service. 

Now if I am speaking to any such backslidden 
soul, I know if you are honest with yourself you 
will bear me witness that the saddest mistake of 
your life was when you deserted Jesus Christ. In 
your best hours, when you are your highest and 
noblest self, you would give anything within your 
power to buy back your peace with God, your joy- 
ous fellowship with Jesus Christ; to regain the 
hope of usefulness and the promise of spiritual 
conquest and heavenly triumph the vision of which 
once animated your soul and made glorious your 
daily life. 

Let no man think it is a light thing to fall away 
from God's fellowship and love. Alas ! many who 
do so never return. Many a young man has fallen 
away like J ohn Mark, but, like Samson, who was 
also reared in a godly home, whose young man- 
hood was animated with noble ambitions and 
whose early career was glorified with the presence 
of God, has fallen away to come back no more, and 
has died, in blindness and bondage and shame, the 
death of a suicide. 

This sad truth was illustrated recently in a 
Western city. The poor victim was one of the 
most successful merchants in that great city ; he 



70 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WOK 



associated with men of prominence, was a mem- 
ber of the leading clubs, and had an open door to 
all that society has to give. He lived in a splendid 
mansion on the favorite street of millionaires and 
merchant princes, and around him were his family 
and admiring friends. But neither his beautiful 
home nor his business prosperity could satisfy a 
heart that had wrenched itself away from God. 
All the treasures he had gathered became as ashes 
in his grasp. Who can tell the torture and agony 
that must have driven his soul when on one of the 
most beautiful days of autumn he turned his back 
upon all that for which he had labored, went down 
to the lake over whose blue waters he had often 
looked with delight, and, as the light was dawning, 
by one mad plunge in the cold waters sought to 
end in their dark depths a life which he could no 
longer bear. Ah, it is an awful thing, having once 
tasted of the good word of life, to desert one's post 
and go back into worldliness and sin ! 

But in the story of Mark there is a message of 
hope. Five years had passed away after his de- 
sertion, and Paul and Barnabas had returned from 
their journeyings in great joy and triumph. After 
a while they decided to go again and visit the 
churches which they had formed in their long mis- 
sionary tour, and build them up in the faith. 
John Mark had now come to his senses and ear- 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



71 



nestly desired that he might accompany these 
great preachers again. But Paul, remembering 
his former desertion, would not consent to have 
him of the party. Barnabas, however, who was 
Mark's cousin, believed in the young man and 
plead that he should be given another trial. Paul 
refusing to permit this, they separated, and Paul, 
choosing Silas as his companion, departed in one 
direction, while Barnabas took Mark and went in 
another. The result shows that Barnabas was 
right and Paul was wrong. We have every reason 
to believe that Mark fully appreciated the second 
opportunity and was ever afterward a most faithful 
and efficient witness for Christ. One of the surest 
evidences of this is that Paul in his old age, in his 
letter to Timothy, asks him to bring Mark with 
him to be his associate, and declares concerning 
him, "He is useful to me." What a victory that 
was for Mark ! It must have been a proud day for 
him when Timothy showed him Paul's letter and 
assured him ■ that the great veteran missionary, 
who had once been so disgusted with him, now be- 
lieved in him thoroughly and desired to have him 
as a fellow worker in the Gospel. 

Let any of you to whom this message comes 
with special personal application take it with 
comfort to your hearts and seize at once the new 
chance which God is now offering to you in Jesus 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



Christ. We can not bring back the past. You 
have made loss and must abide by it unto eternity ; 
but, thank God ! there is a new chance, and there 
is hope and salvation in it, if you will accept it. 
Because you have failed once is no reason why, 
with added wisdom and experience and the failure 
of the past to warn you, you shall not now enter 
upon a Christian experience that shall be crowned 
with glorious victory. Come back to Christ now ! 
To-day is the day of salvation. If ye will hear his 
voice, harden not your hearts. 

Do not dally with this opportunity, for another, 
like it may never come. A convict in prison, 
under sentence of death, was very anxious to get 
access to the governor that he might plead with 
him for a pardon. One day a gentleman of unpre- 
tending appearance visited his cell and spoke to 
him very kindly, but without producing any spe- 
cial impression upon him. 

After the gentleman had gone some one said to 
the prisoner, " Did you know that that was the gov- 
ernor?" 

"Oh," he said, "why didn't I know it, that I 
might have asked him to pardon me?" 

Opportunities of salvation thus come unheralded 
and unrecognized and pass away forever. Oh 
that I had the ability to arrest your attention, 
arouse your conscience, and summon your will, so 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WON 



73 



that every power of your nature might be concen- 
trated on the offer of salvation which Jesus your 
Savior makes you now. 

Do not wait to make yourself any better. Do 
not try in your own strength to get back some of 
the ground you have lost. Christ came to save sin- 
ners, and if you will come just as you are, a poor 
sinner, crying out, with the publican mentioned 
in the Gospel record, "God be merciful to me a 
sinner !" you may be sure of a loving welcome. 

There is a story of a great monarch who was ac- 
customed on certain set occasions to entertain all 
the beggars of the city. Around him were placed 
his courtiers, all clothed in rich apparel ; the beg- 
gars sat at the same table in their rags of poverty. 
Now it came to pass that on a certain day one of 
the courtiers had spoiled his silken apparel, so 
that he dared not put it on, and he felt, " I can not 
go to the king's feast to-day, for my robe is foul." 
He sat weeping till the thought struck him : " To- 
morrow, when the king holds his feast, some will 
come as courtiers happily decked in their beautiful 
array, but others will come and be made quite as 
welcome who will be dressed in rags. Well, well," 
said he, "so long as I may see the king's face and 
sit at the royal table, I will enter among the beg- 
gars." So he put on the rags of a beggar and was 
welcomed to the king's table. 



74 



FAILED ONCE, BUT WOK 



My friend, this is just your case. You have 
spoiled the silken robe of your purity, you can 
only come as a poor sinner. But as such he will 
welcome you and you shall sit at his table, tho 
not in rags, for he will clothe you anew in his own 
righteousness. Only yield your heart to the Gos- 
pel message and you shall be able to sing with the 
poet-saint : 

" Jesus, thy blood and righteousness 
My beauty are, my glorious dress ; 
'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, 
With joy shall I lift up my head. " 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



"He had faith to be made whole." — Acts xiv. 9 (Rev. 
Ver.). 

Paul and Barnabas had come to Lystra in their 
great missionary preaching tour. Luke with al- 
most epigrammatic brevity describes their conduct 
there by saying, "And there they preached the 
gospel." We do not know whether they preached 
in a hall, or a temple, or in the street ; but it was 
most probably in the open air. We do not know 
a great deal about the audience, except that there 
was a good crowd, and among them there was a 
priest of Jupiter, and a poor cripple who had been 
such all his life and had never been able to walk 
with his weak, crooked legs. Perhaps some one 
had carried him to the place where Paul was talk- 
ing, to gratify his curiosity or to bring a little 
touch of freshness and newness into his dull life. 
It is hard to be a cripple and to be unable to 
help oneself, to see others walk and run care- 
lessly as tho it were nothing at all, while we are 

chained to the bed or chair and must depend 

75 



76 



THE CUBE OF SOULS. 



on somebody's kindness to carry us about. It is 
hard to be a cripple now under the most favorable 
circumstances. Many a rich man with rheumatic 
limbs would give half his fortune and more if he 
could walk and run equal to the newsboy who 
sells him his morning paper. But to have been a 
cripple in those old days, when easy-chairs and 
rolling-chairs were unknown, and hospitals and 
modern surgery and medicine had never been 
dreamed of, must have been pitiful indeed. 

Of all the people in the congregation, this crip- 
ple attracted Paul's attention most. The heart of 
Paul was thoroughly permeated with the spirit of 
the Christ whom he preached. "Whoever had the 
greatest need of the Gospel message made the 
greatest demand on Paul's attention and self-deny- 
ing service. Jesus Christ came to die for a race 
of lost sinners not because they were good, but 
because they were bad; not because they had any 
worth or merit, but because they were unlovable 
and lost and without hope. So Paul felt that the 
man who was in the worst plight and whom nobody 
else cared for was the special prize which it was 
above all else his duty to capture for his Master. 

All we know about the sermon is that Luke de- 
clares it was the Gospel. But judging from the 
other sermons of Paul which we have read, we 
know very well some of the things that were in it. 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



77 



Paul told that wondering crowd of idol-worshipers 
of * the living God" who is over all, from whose 
hand comes every good and perfect gift; who 
created man in his own image and likeness, and 
watched after him with tender compassion and love 
as he went astray into paths of sin and brought 
upon himself sorrow and remorse and ruin. Then 
he told of the love of God that sought out a way 
of salvation for poor lost sinners, and assured 
them, no doubt, as he afterward did in his letter 
to the Eomans, that, tho "the wages of sin is 
death," the great gift of God is eternal life through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Then he told of the com- 
ing of Jesus, of his pure life, of his deeds of mercy 
and healing. How he opened the eyes of the 
blind; how he made deaf men hear and dumb 
men speak; how he even cleansed lepers and 
brought back the dead to life; and that finally, 
when he had been slain upon the cruel cross, and 
his dead body put away in a stone tomb with a 
sealed door and guarded with soldiers, he had 
burst asunder the bands of death, and risen from 
the dead, and is alive forevermore, the friend and 
Savior of sinners. 

Then Paul with glowing face and moist eyes told 
the wonderful story of his own meeting with Jesus 
Christ. We are sure he did that, for he never 
failed, no matter what the character of the audi- 



78 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



ence — whether he were preaching in the street or 
making defense before kings — to seize upon every 
opportunity to bear that witness to his Lord. 
And so we are sure he told over again, that day in 
Lystra, of his early hatred of Christ, and of his 
persecution of the Christians, and how he went up 
to Damascus with authority to put them in prison 
or even persecute them to the death ; and how as 
he went in the way he met the Lord. He told of 
the light that shone round about them, and of the 
pleading words of Christ, " Why persecutest thou 
me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad !" 
that had broken his heart and melted his hatred 
into love; and that from that day, having obtained 
the help of God, he had been faithful unto the 
heavenly vision. 

Now just imagine how all this sounded in the 
ears of that crippled man lying there on the ground 
before Paul. You have heard it all so often that 
there is danger of its losing its power to interest 
and awaken and save you. God forbid that such 
should be the case! But this poor fellow was 
hearing it for the first time. He was hearing it, 
too, out of a deep consciousness of his great 
need. 

It may be that he was not greatly interested in 
the opening of Paul's argument. Perhaps he said 
to himself: "The knowledge of the gods and of 



THE CUBE OF SOULS. 



79 



such wonderful people as this Jewish Messiah is 
of no great interest to a poor cripple like me. It 
may be all right for scholars, and travelers who 
can go about the world, to store up interesting 
knowledge like that ; but what chance is there for 
a poor crooked-legged fellow like me to know any- 
thing?" 

But when Paul got to the place where he began 
to tell about the ministry of Jesus, and how he 
went about doing good, and of the different people 
he healed, and that many of them were poor and 
had nothing to pay — ah ! I can see the flash of in- 
terest in his eyes and the aroused and alert attitude 
of his head as he watches Paul. Underneath his 
interest a reverie is running in his mind. He is 
saying to himself : "Why! the man who could open 
the eyes of one who was born blind could straighten 
the limbs of one who was born a cripple." And 
then when Paul came to the story of the bringing 
of Lazarus from the grave, he could hardly keep 
from shouting aloud : " That man could heal me ! 
If he can bring a dead man back to life, then if 
he ever comes this way I am just as good as 
healed!" 

Then he settles himself to listen, trying to learn 
where this great Healer is now. Perhaps this 
strange preacher is only his forerunner, and the 
Master himself will soon be along. And then Paul 



80 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



tells of the arrest of Jesus, of the trial before 
Pilate, of the crown of thorns, and of the cross on 
Golgotha. Oh, the wonder and sorrow that crept 
into that poor cripple's face ! His heart sank, and 
the new, strange hope that had made life seem 
worth living again died down in his soul. His 
poor, pallid face bore witness to the heartache 
within, and he groaned as Paul came to the place 
in the story where they put the dead body of Jesus 
away in Joseph's tomb. 

But something in Paul's attitude, and some 
overpowering hopefulness in his tone and the flash 
of his eye, aroused him to listen to the wonderful 
story of the resurrection. Yet it all seemed vague 
and unreal until Paul began to tell his own per- 
sonal experience. Oh ! the power of personal ex- 
perience. Not one of you, whatever your elo- 
quence or your learning, will ever preach any 
gospel equal in attractive and saving power to that 
which you proclaim when, with humility and sim- 
plicity, you speak of the loving-kindness of Jesus 
Christ in the forgiveness of your own sins, in the 
salvation of your own soul. 

And so the poor fellow followed Paul all the 
way from Jerusalem to Damascus, and listened 
with throbbing heart and renewing hope to the 
story of Paul's conversion. The deep signifi- 
cance of the change wrought in Paul impressed 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



81 



him, and made him feel that after all that was 
a greater miracle than the healing of crippled 
limbs. 

Now Paul had been watching all this undercur- 
rent of tragedy that was stirring this man's soul; 
for the record says that Paul had been looking at 
this man with great interest and attention. There 
was nothing very uncommon and unusual about 
that; most public speakers are conscious of deliv- 
ering their discourse to here and there a face that 
attracts and holds them with special interest. This 
is especially true if it be a congregation of strangers 
and all the faces are new to the speaker. Some 
one face, it may be, will seize the speaker's atten- 
tion and hold his gaze and control a certain inde- 
finable undercurrent of his thought throughout 
his address. Paul was a man of keen spiritual 
insight, and he had watched the face of this poor 
cripple and saw as he concluded the story of his 
own salvation that this man had come to be a be- 
liever in Jesus Christ for himself. He saw in the 
man's eyes his willingness to take Jesus as his 
Savior, and Paul, "steadfastly beholding him, 
and perceiving that he had faith to be made whole, 
said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. 
And he leaped and walked." 

I want to call special attention to the emphasis 

laid on the kind of faith which Paul discerned in 
6 



82 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



this man. "He had faith to be made whole." 
The first element in that faith was that he believed 
Jesus Christ, who had performed all those won- 
derful deeds that Paul had recounted, was able and 
willing to heal him. 

Brother, let us apply this to yourself. Is it 
not true that you have that much faith? Altho 
there have been times, perhaps, when the devil has 
tried to make you believe that Christ was only a 
man like other men, and has no superhuman power 
to save, yet in your better hours you know that 
this is not true. Tou are sure that no mere Gal- 
ilean youth could have gone out from his carpen- 
ter's shop in Nazareth to have launched upon the 
world the mighty river of saving influence that has 
filled the earth with churches and schools and hos- 
pitals and orphan asylums, and transformed the 
face of nations, and two thousand years after his 
death be ever increasing in power over the hearts 
and lives of men. Your reason and your heart 
bow down before all this, and in the inner court of 
your soul you say, " He is the Christ. He is the 
divine Savior of the world." 

You also believe that he is able to save you. 
There are times, possibly, when the chain of evil 
habit is specially noticeable to you and seems to 
hold you like a prisoner in its iron grip, that you 
have been tempted to feel that there was for you 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



83 



no hope of freedom from this bondage of iniquity. 
But when you come to consider how great have 
been the conversions he has wrought, when you 
think of the ransomed and transformed lives the 
record of which not only fills the pages of the 
Bible, but whose testimonies are in every town and 
city and whose stories are in every prayer-meeting, 
you do believe that he is able to save you. 

Why, then, are you not saved? 

It may be that with some the sense of need is 
not great enough. If that is keeping you back, I 
pray God that he will uncover to you the depravity 
of your own heart and show you the terrible dan- 
ger and peril of this heart-wandering. Sin in the 
sight of God is an awful thing. It was sin that 
drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. It 
was sin that flooded the world with desolation and 
disaster. It was sin that rained devastation on 
Sodom and the cities of the plain. It was sin that 
pressed down the crown of piercing thorns on the 
innocent brow of Jesus. It was sin that gave force 
to every cut of the lash that drew the blood from 
his bruised and wounded back. It was sin that 
drove the nails through his hands and feet and 
pierced him to the heart. It is sin to-day that fills 
the jails and the prisons. It is sin that is causing 
strife and quarreling and bitterness and heartache 
in the homes of the people. It is sin that is dri- 



84 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



ving men and women in the bloom of their years to 
crime and suicide, Ah, has not sin done aught for 
you? Has it caused you no tears? Has it caused 
you no sleepless hours? Has it blighted no flow- 
ers of hope in your soul? I do not know what 
your sin is, but God knows, and you know, and I 
am certain that if the Holy Spirit will uncover 
your heart to you now, you will be sure of your 
need of a Savior — as sure as was that poor cripple 
at Lystra that he needed the great Healer to cure 
him. 

But if you feel your need, and you believe that 
Christ is able and willing to save you, why are you 
not saved? The one element that you lack, which 
Paul discovered in the poor cripple, is a willing- 
ness to act here and now on your faith. Paul as 
he looked into the eyes of the crippled man saw 
in him the faith to be healed then and there ; and 
so, looking him straight in the eye that he might 
understand who was meant, Paul said with a loud 
voice : " Stand upright on thy feet." And the man 
responded at once. He never had stood on his 
feet. But he made no excuses. In this new faith 
in Christ he made the attempt, and strange sensa- 
tions ran through his limbs, his veins were on fire 
with new life, his muscles relaxed, his crooked 
bones straightened, and he not only stood, but his 
glad heart expressed its rapture in joyous leaps. 



THE CUBE OF SOULS. 



85 



It is that element of faith which you lack, and the 
power to have that is in yourself. 

God has done everything he can for your salva- 
tion. Jesus Christ has borne your sins in his own 
body on the cross. He has tasted death for you. 
And now the invitation comes to you to act. That 
is all that is necessary for your healing. Tou 
have heard the Gospel and you believe it. What 
is there for you to do now but obey the command- 
ments of Jesus by confessing him before men and 
henceforth keeping his words? " Whosoever will 
may come !" If you will, you may. It took only 
a moment to save this poor cripple, and it will take 
but a moment to save you if you determine now to 
be saved. 

Mr. S. Donaldson, the evangelist, tells this in- 
teresting story of a soul's salvation: A sailor had 
been ashore on leave of absence and returned at 
night partially intoxicated. The ship was con- 
nected with the wharf by only a narrow plank about 
a foot wide, and when he attempted to walk over 
it, he slipped and fell, but succeeded in seizing 
hold of the plank. The fright sobered him, and 
he felt the plank move ; but after a quiver or two 
it stood fast and he hung suspended over the water. 
He was afraid to move, lest he should, bring both 
plank and himself down into the water. He 
shouted for help, but there came no reply. Then 



86 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



there came to his mind the text of a sermon he had 
heard in the Seaman's Bethel: "After death the 
judgment." He was sure that for him judgment 
was only another name for condemnation. The 
beads of perspiration were breaking out on his 
forehead from fear of death and what would follow. 
In that awful moment, direct from heaven there 
flashed before him a vision of Christ the Savior, 
and in his heart he accepted him. Immediately 
there came the message that brought peace to the 
stricken heart. He knew that God had saved him 
— that he had passed from death unto life. All 
his anguish and fear of death passed away. But 
God had work for him to do on this earth. Lights 
began to move on the wharf, and he was discovered 
and rescued. Yet he blesses that night, when God 
by his providence brought him to see his need of a 
Savior; and tho it is now years ago, he has ever 
since rejoiced in the Lord, and striven to make 
known to others the good news that Jesus loves 
and saves. 

This may be your hour of salvation. The crip- 
ple at Lystra had been a cripple all his life, but he 
was healed in a single moment. Sin has hurt and 
marred you and saddened your life, it may be for 
many years, but if you will accept the invitation of 
salvation, your sins may be forgiven and you ran- 
somed from guilt in a single moment. Oh, that 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



87 



the mighty spirit that was in Paul may rest upon 
me and give me power to look into your eyes and 
say, "Stand upright on thy feet?" and give you 
power to respond unto the confession of Christ, 
and to the salvation of your soul ! 



A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 



"A vision appeared to Paul in the night; there was a 
man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying, 
Come over into Macedonia and help us. And when he had 
seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into 
Macedonia, concluding that God had called us for to preach 
the gospel unto them. " — Acts xvi. 9, 10 (Rev. Ver.). 

Peehaps no incident in Paul's life so vividly sets 
forth the spiritual insight of the man as this. 
No human messenger had come to them from 
Macedonia. Macedonia knew nothing about 
Christ and cared nothing. They were busy with 
their gains and their gods and knew not the ter- 
rible need of their souls that some one should come 
to them from the living God, and show them how 
to worship him. But Paul, to whom had come 
this glorious knowledge of Jesus Christ, saw in 
their very blindness and ignorance a tremendous 
appeal for help. His man of Macedonia was the 
genius of all that heathen world — a typical soul, 
beating itself against the bars of its own ignorance 

and sin, and it appealed to Paul with even more 

88 



A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 89 



pathos than would entreaties from the lips of a 
man who knew and understood his need. 

It is that spiritual insight which we as Chris- 
tians need. We need to come into such close fellow- 
ship with Jesus Christ that, like Paul, we shall see, 
as Christ sees them, the men and women whom we 
meet daily, and shall be able to look below the 
surface of their giddy, self-sufficient lives and be- 
hold and pity the hungry heartache which only God 
can satisfy. 

One day a little crippled boy was seated in the 
corner of a Broadway car in New York City. He 
was a frail little fellow, and was evidently an in- 
tense sufferer from spinal disease. His head and 
the upper part of his body were enclosed in a net- 
work of steel and leather, and an iron brace was 
tightly strapped to the side of one of his legs. 
Poverty, too, seemed to be his misfortune. His 
clothing was of cheap material. There was a hole 
in every finger of the black cotton gloves worn by 
his fifteen-year-old sister who accompanied him, 
and her dress was patched in several places. 
Tho both were neat and clean, real poverty marked 
them for its own. 

At Thirty-third Street a handsomely dressed 
young woman boarded the car, and dropped into 
a seat directly opposite the pair. Tucked in the 
folds of her coat was a big bunch of fresh double 



90 A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 

violets, tied with a long purple ribbon, and their 
fragrant odor at once pervaded the car. The little 
boy caught the scent, and at once his great brown 
eyes sought the flowers. Then he whispered 
something to his sister, who blushed and told him 
to wait a while. Turning his attention again to the 
violets, the lad gazed upon them until his eyes 
grew bright and round, and every few moments he 
would draw an extra long breath, as if to take in 
all of the sweet perfume he could. Soon every one 
in the forward part of the car was watching him. 
From the look of admiration there grew in those 
brown eyes an expression of soul-hunger and long- 
ing so earnest and deep that it made every heart 
thrill with sympathy. 

The young woman, with changing emotions, 
glanced uneasily at the boy at intervals, but soon 
the power of those eyes and the soul they revealed 
overcame her. With a quick tug she drew the 
violets from her coat, and with tears springing to 
her eyes handed them to the boy, purple ribbon 
and all. Before the child could recover from his 
great joy she sought the platform and was gone. 

There was not a dry eye in all the crowded car. 
Men and women looked at each other through their 
tears, so deeply had the little incident, revealing 
so much of the human heart, moved them. 

There ought to be a message in the story for us. 



A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 91 

We come into daily association with men and 
women and children who are heart-hungry for the 
holiest things, tho they often do not know what 
it is for which they hunger. But if we live close 
to God, and breathe the atmosphere of the Christ- 
spirit, we shall have keen eyes to detect their 
needs, and sympathetic hearts to bring to their 
lives the fragrance of heaven. 

We always have within our reach the mighty 
lever of prayer, by which we may move the arm 
of God in behalf of those who need a revelation of 
a Savior to their own heart. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps tells a most beautiful 
story of Harriet Beecher Stowe. During the latter 
part of her life, Mrs. Stowe was one of those de- 
vout Christian believers whose consecration takes 
high forms. She had the most implicit faith in 
prayer, and gave herself to that kind of personal 
dedication to God which exercises and cultivates 
it. There came a time when one who was very 
dear to her seemed about to sink away from the 
faith in which she trusted, and to which life and 
sorrow had taught her to cling as only those can 
who have suffered and found beneath them the 
warm grip of the Everlasting Arms. 

This prospect was a crushing grief to her, and 
she set herself resolutely to avert the calamity if 
and while she could. Letter after letter — some of 



92 A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 

them thirty pages long — found their way from her 
pen to the foreign town in which German rational- 
ism was doing its worst for the soul she loved. 
She set the full force of her intellect intelli- 
gently to work upon this conflict. She read, she 
reasoned, she wrote, she argued, she pleaded. 
Months passed in a struggle whose usefulness 
seemed a pitiable hope, to be frustrated in the 
effort. 

Then she laid aside her strong pen, and turned 
to her great faith. As the season of the sacred 
holiday approached, she shut herself into her 
room, secluding herself from all but God, and 
prayed as only such a believer, only such a woman, 
may. As she had set the full force of her intellect, 
so now she set the full power of her faith, to work 
upon her soul's desire. Such prayers never fail 
of their great end. A few weeks later a letter 
reached her from over the sea, saying only : " At 
Christmas-time a light came to me. I see things 
differently now. I see my way to accept the faith 
of my fathers ; and the belief in Christianity which 
is everything to you has become reasonable and 
possible to me at last." 

May God help us every one to struggle daily at 
the throne of grace in behalf of the blind souls 
who need so much to be able to behold Christ as 
the One altogether lovely ! 



A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 93 

Do not many of you now realize that you have 
been blind to the great interests of your soul? 
You have lived in a world full of Christ, and yet 
you have never looked upon him with that heart- 
look that means salvation. "While others were 
drawing from him the dearest comfort of their 
souls, you have gone on with the heartache, when 
you might have reached out your hand and touched 
the Savior who could have given you peace. 

A little girl, the child of a well-known painter, 
had lost her sight in infancy, and her blindness 
was supposed to be incurable. A famous oculist 
in Paris, however, performed a successful opera- 
tion on her eyes. 

Her mother had long been dead, and her father 
had been her only intimate friend and companion. 
When she was told that her blindness could be 
cured, her one thought was that she could see 
him; and when the cure was complete, and the 
bandages were removed, she ran to him and, 
trembling, pored over his features, shutting her 
eyes now and then, and passing her fingers over 
his face, as if to make sure that it was he. 

The father had a noble head and presence, and 
his every look and motion were watched by his 
daughter with the keenest delight. For the first 
time his constant tenderness and care seemed real 
to her. If he caressed her, or even looked upon 



94 A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 

her kindly, it brought the tears to her eyes. * To 
think," she cried, holding his hand close in hers, 
"that I had this father so many years and never 
knew him !" 

So I have known people who were born in Chris- 
tian homes, whose mothers sang them to sleep 
with songs about Jesus ; who grew up in the Sun- 
day-school and knew by heart the story of Christ- 
mas, and Calvary, and Easter; who in a dim, 
blind way had often thought about Christ as the 
Savior of the world, and the One to whom some 
time they hoped to come as their personal Re- 
deemer; and yet all his love and sacrifice was 
vague and unreal and had no vital power over their 
lives until there came a time when conscience 
aroused, when the Holy Spirit uncovered to them 
the sinfulness of their hearts, when as never before 
they saw the peril of their souls and looked down 
into the deeper depths toward which sin was lead- 
ing them; and in the agony of that awakening 
they turned their tearful eyes toward Christ as 
their only hope of escape; and Christ, tho long 
slighted, in the infinite tenderness of his love par- 
doned their sins, and wiped away their tears, and 
rejoiced their hearts, and of that new-found Christ 
they said, like this little girl: "To think that I 
should have had this Savior all these years and 
never have come to know him before !" 



A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 95 



Do not let anything keep you away from the 
Christ who offers to save you now. Sometimes 
the devil holds a man's past sins over his head 
with a threat, and tells him he is too great a sinner 
to be saved ; but Christ is able to save unto the 
uttermost every one that will come unto God by 
him. 

Mr. Spurgeon used to tell the story of Mr. 
Brownlow North, an esteemed friend of his, but 
who was long a frivolous man of the world. He 
had been a very dissipated man, and connected 
with some disgraceful scenes. After his conver- 
sion he began to preach the Gospel with great 
fervor, and certain of his old companions were 
full of spite against him, probably considering him 
a hypocrite. 

One day, when he was about to address a large 
congregation, a stranger passed him a letter, say- 
ing, "Read that before you preach." This letter 
contained a statement of certain wickednesses com- 
mitted by Brownlow North, and it ended with 
words to this effect, "How dare you, being con- 
scious of the truth of all the above, pray and speak 
to the people this evening, when you are such a 
vile sinner?" 

North put the letter into his pocket, entered the 
pulpit, and after the hymns and prayer commenced 
his address to a crowded congregation ; but before 



96 A CRY FOR HELP FROM SILENT LIPS. 

speaking on his text he produced the letter and 
read it to the people, and then added : " All that is 
here said is true, and it is a correct picture of the 
degraded sinner that I once was; and oh, how 
wonderful must be the grace that could quicken 
and raise me up from such a death in trespasses 
and sins, and make me what I am here before you 
to-night, a vessel of mercy, one who knows that all 
his past sins have been cleansed away through the 
atoning blood of the Lamb of God ! It is of his 
redeeming love that I have to tell you, and to en- 
treat any here who are not yet reconciled to God 
to come this night in faith to Jesus, that he may 
take their sins away and heal them." 

Thus the attack of the enemy only gave this 
truly converted man the greater power to win 
souls to Christ. So the Savior will deal with 
you. He will blot your sins out of his book for- 
ever. He will cleanse the very thoughts of your 
heart. He will inspire your soul for holy deeds, 
and cause life to open before you sweeter and 
grander than any vision which has ever gladdened 
your eyes. 



GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



" AndGallio cared for none of these things." — Acts xviii. 
17 (Rev. Ver.). 

Men earn their title to immortality in different 
ways. Some live in history because of heroism, 
and others because of their infamy; some write 
their names in positive characters, and others gain 
a hold on remembrance because of the things they 
did not do. I suppose if Gallio had been told in 
the court-room that day that his only claim on his- 
tory would be that he was the judge before whom 
a persecuted and hated Jewish preacher was tried, 
he would have laughed in contempt, but it would 
have been the truth. Gallio only lives to-day in 
human remembrance because of his relation to 
Paul. 

Gallio does not seem to have been positively 

either good or bad. He wag a negative character. 

When the Jews brought Paul before him, accusing 

him of blasphemy and heresy, Gallio threw the 

case out of court, declaring that it did not come 

under his province. When the Greeks took Sos- 
7 97 



98 



OALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



thenes, the chief ruler of the synagog, and beat 
him in the court-room, Gallio looked on with in- 
difference. And Luke, who made the record, says 
that the judge cared for none of these things. He 
was indifferent to the w r hole subject of religion. 
He thought his business as a judge of the law and 
man of the world was of infinitely more impor- 
tance than all of these things which related to the 
worship of God and the future world. He looked 
upon all such subjects with contempt. And so it 
has happened that Gallio has come down through 
all the centuries as a synonym for indifference. 

I think there is a good message for us in this 
picture. The greatest foe the Christian church 
has to contend with to-day is sluggishness and in- 
difference concerning the great spiritual interests 
of the soul. So much of our religion is perfunc- 
tory. Men who are enthusiastic in sports, or in 
pleasure, or in political or business circles, become 
dull and heavy and sleepy, full of sluggishness and 
conservatism, when you talk to them about the 
spiritual interests of the church to which they be- 
long, and the advancement of the kingdom of the 
Christ to whom they have sworn the most solemn 
allegiance. 

One cause of this indifference must be that many 
people have a wrong idea of what are the best and 
most important things in life. Christ surely spoke 



OALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



99 



with wisdom and truth when he said that where 
the treasure is there the heart will be also. If a 
man really believes that his business is much more 
important than his religion, then he will naturally 
give it a great deal more attention. If he thinks 
it is more important to him to stand well in his 
lodge than in his church, then when the lodge 
night conflicts with prayer-meeting or revival ser- 
vice, the lodge, and not the house of God, will have 
his presence. If people find more enjoyment in 
the opera or the club than they do in the church, 
then these seem to them the most important things, 
and the church service and its interests are thrust 
aside to receive the fag-end of their strength and 
attention. In saying these things I am not dealing 
in sarcasm at all, I am simply stating common- 
sense facts. A man who enjoys playing whist, or 
progressive euchre, or anything of that sort, more 
than he does the worship of God, and the seeking 
to be a sharer in the work of winning immortal 
souls to the hope that is in Christ, can not be ex- 
pected to be an enthusiastic Christian. What I 
want to impress is, that all such people are ma- 
king a great blunder as to what is the most impor- 
tant thing in human life ; for I do maintain that 
the best things are not lands, or houses, or bonds, 
or money, or political honors, or social victories, or 
sensual pleasures however refined. The best things 



100 OALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



are spiritual, and have to do with one's relation 
to God, and Christ, and the life which does not 
perish. Whatever uses these worldly things have 
that are tempting many professed Christians away 
from their duty, away from their fidelity to Christ 
and their enjoyment of spiritual things — and that 
they have many uses I do not for a moment ques- 
tion — they possess no power in themselves to 
satisfy the aspirations of an immortal soul ; they 
can not " minister to a mind diseased, nor pluck 
from the brain a rooted sorrow." 

During the last few months some of the most 
cultivated people in the land — some of them ele- 
gant ladies, possessed of the highest culture, of 
the most brilliant social position, surrounded by all 
the luxuries and comforts that wealth can give, 
having unlimited opportunity for the pleasures 
which intoxicate so many giddy souls — have de- 
liberately taken their own lives because all worldly 
pleasures and enjoyments had palled on the taste, 
and the bitterness of an empty life of vanity had 
eaten out their hearts, and human living had be- 
come unbearable to them. The Christian that 
exchanges for any worldly success or pleasure his 
family altar, his daily reading of the Bible, his 
hour of secret prayer, his attendance on revival 
meetings, his sympathetic and loving fellowship 
with Christ and his people in winning souls, is 



OALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 101 



the worst-cheated man in the community. How 
the devil must laugh when he defrauds a man like 
that — gives him ashes for beautiful flowers ! gives 
him soap-bubbles in exchange for a crown of life ! 
gives him an hour's intoxication with the aching 
heart to follow, for endless peace and eternal 
victory ! 

Indifference in Christian work, especially in 
recommending Christ to others and seeking to win 
them as gems for his crown, is unworthy of us in 
view of the great debt which we owe Christ for our 
personal salvation. 

At a dinner recently given by a Grand Army Post, 
a veteran soldier was introduced as one of the 
speakers. In making the introduction the presi- 
ding officer referred to the fact that the man who 
was to speak had lost a leg in the war, and he was 
naturally greeted with the most enthusiastic cheers 
as he rose to make his address. But he began by 
disavowing the introduction. "No," he said, 
" that is a mistake ; I did not lose anything in the 
war ; for when we went into the war we gave our 
country all that we had, and all that we brought 
back was so much clear gain." 

That is the spirit of the noblest patriotism, and 
that is the spirit which ought to animate our hearts 
as the friends of Jesus Christ. He bought us with 
his own blood on Calvary's cross. We were the 



102 GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



poor slaves of sin and without him we had no 
hope. Our acceptance of Christ was only a mock- 
ery, only a base and hypocritical ceremony, unless 
we gave him our whole hearts and lives ; and it is 
unworthy of us to render him a half-hearted, slug- 
gish, indifferent service. 

The story has been told of a soldier who was 
missed amid the bustle of a battle. No one knew 
what had become of him, but his captain knew 
that he was not in the ranks. As soon as oppor- 
tunity offered an officer went in search of him, and 
to his surprise found that during the battle the 
man had been amusing himself in a flower garden ! 
When it was demanded what he did there, he ex- 
cused himself by saying, as he hung his head in 
shame, "Sir, I am doing no harm." But he was 
tried, convicted, and shot. 

Alas ! That man has many a counterpart in the 
church of God. While we are rallying from day 
to day, seeking to attract sinners to hear the mes- 
sage of salvation, and bending all our energies to 
the one great work of arousing the attention of the 
indifferent, of presenting Christ as the One alto- 
gether lovely, many who bear the name of Jesus, 
and who on all occasions of dress parade are proud 
to be known as members of the church and friends 
of Jesus, are amusing themselves in the world's 
flower gardens, in any way which attracts their 



GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 103 



fancy. I do not speak this in anger, but with a 
great sense of pity for the loss that must come to 
any soul that misses the great opportunity of hay- 
ing a part in such a divine service for the Master. 

Indifference to soul-saving is unworthy of the 
kindness of your heart, and the ordinary interest 
which you show in the welfare of your fellow men. 
Tou are not hard-hearted, nor lacking in the ordi- 
nary milk of human kindness. If your neighbor 
were starving, you would divide your last loaf with 
him. If a child were run over in the street before 
your eyes, and crushed under a heavy hoof or 
heavier wheel, you would be quick to offer your 
helpful hand and sympathetic deed. 

Not long ago, in the railway depot at Nashville, 
Tenn., an old colored man began crying, and an 
excitement was raised among the travelers. The 
old man seemed to be in uncontrollable sorrow. 

After a moment or two a depot policeman came 
forward and took him by the arm, shaking him 
roughly, and said : 

" See here, old man, you want to quit that ! Tou 
are drunk, and if you make any more disturbance, 
rillock you up !" 

" 'Deed, but I hain't drunk, " replied the old man, 
as he removed his tear-stained handkerchief. 
" Tse losted my ticket an' money, an' dat's what's 
de matter." 



104 



GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



" Bosh ! you never had any money to lose You 
dry up or away you go !" 

"What's the matter yere?" queried a man as he 
came forward. 

The old man recognized the dialect of a South- 
erner in an instant, and repressing his emotion 
with a great effort, he answered: 

"Say, Mars Jack, I'se been robbed/' 

"My name is White." 

"Well, then, Mars White, somebody has done 
robbed me of ticket an' money." 

"Where were you going?" 

"Gwine down into Kaintuck wha I was bo'n an' 
raised." 

"Where's that?" 

" Nigh to Bowlin' Green, sah, an' when de wah 
done sot me free, I come up dis way. Hain't ben 
home sence, sah." 

"And you had a ticket?" 

"Yes, sah, an' ober twenty dollars in cash. Bin 
savin' up for ten y'ars, sah." 

"What do you want to go back for?" 

" To see de hills an' de fields, de tobacco, an de 
co'n, Mars Preston, an' de good ole Missus. 
Why, Mars White, I'se dun bin prayin' fur it fo' 
twenty y'ars. Some time de longin' has cum till 
I couldn't hardly hoi' myself." 

"It's too bad." 



GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 105 



" De ole woman is buried down dar, Mars White 
-de ole woman en' free chillun. I kin 'member 
de spot same as if I seed it yisterday. You go out 
half-way to de fust tobacker house, an' den you 
turn to de lef ' an' go down to de branch whar de 
wimmen us'd to wash. Dar's fo' trees on de oder 
bank, an' right under 'em is whar dey is all buried. 
I kin see it ! I kin lead you right to de spot." 

"And what will you do when you get there?" 
asked the stranger. 

" Go up to de big house an' ax Mars Preston to 
let me lib out all de rest of my days right dar. I'se 
ole an' all alone, an' I want to be nigh my dead. 
Sorter company fur me when my heart aches." 

"Where were you robbed?" 

"Out doahs dar, I reckon, in de crowd. See! 
De pocket is all cut out. I'se dreamed an' pon- 
dered, I'se had dis journey in my mind fur y'ars, 
an' now I'se done bin robbed an' can't go?" 

He fell to crying and the policeman came for- 
ward in an officious manner. 

"Stand back, sir!" commanded the stranger. 
" Now, gentlemen, you have heard the story. I'jn 
going to help the old man back to the old planta- 
tion and to be buried alongside of his dead." 

"So am I!" called twenty men in chorus, and 
within five minutes they had raised enough to buy 
him a ticket and leave fifty dollars to spare. 



106 



QALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



When he realized his good luck the snow-haired 
black man fell upon his knees in that crowd and 
prayed: "Lord, I'se been a believer in you all 
my days, an' now I dun ax you to watch ober 
dese yere white folks dat has believed in me an' 
helped me to go back to de ole home." 

No wonder there was not a dry eye in all the 
crowd of travelers that listened to the old man's 
prayer. 

Now it seems perfectly natural to you that the 
old man's loneliness, his longing to go back to the 
old home, and die among familiar scenes, and be 
buried beside his friends, should have touched the 
hearts of those happier people and aroused them 
to help him. You say it would have been brutal 
if they could have listened to his story and been 
indifferent to it. But how you condemn yourself 
when you say that, if you are allowing days of 
earnest revival effort to go by without joining your 
prayers, your presence, and your earnest labor to 
help bring home those who are dying without hope 
and without God. All about us are men and 
women who have wandered away from the home of 
the soul, and are starving for the Bread of Life. 
Young men and young women by the hundreds 
and the thousands throng these hotels and board- 
ing-houses about us, who were brought up in 
Christian homes, who were taught to pray at a 



OALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 107 



mother's knee, who were told the sweet story of 
Christ in their childhood ; but they have come out 
into the world and have been drawn away and en- 
ticed by its sins. The wheels of worldliness have 
run them down in the street and crushed them. 
Their highest hopes, their noblest purposes, are 
being smothered, and unless we shall be ready with 
sympathetic hand, with kindly smiles, with loving 
entreaty, they will be lost forever. How can you 
be indifferent when there is so much at stake? 
Think of the mothers in country homes and in 
little towns and villages who night after night wet 
their pillows with their tears as they pray for 
absent sons and daughters that are being tempted 
downward toward death and hell in this great 
city ! What if it were your boy that was in such 
awful peril! What if it were your girl against 
whom every devilish thing seemed to be conspir- 
ing! How would you bless the pastor and the 
Christian men and women of a church that laid 
aside their business, and their social engagements, 
and everything else that beckoned them, and gave 
themselves up night after night to the great work 
of saving your boy or your girl ! God help us to 
put ourselves in our brother's place, and rouse 
ourselves from an indifference that is unworthy 
of us. 

But this study ought to have a message for those 



108 GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 



of you who are not Christians, who have been in- 
different to the question of your own personal sal- 
vation. You have possibly been so reared that 
you have been saved from the most outbreaking 
sins, but you have been indifferent to the claims of 
Christ upon your soul. The Christ who has of- 
fered to come into your heart and glorify it by his 
presence, has been slighted by you. You have 
given him no affection, no gratitude, and closed 
your heart against him for other guests whose 
presence in your heart-temple make you blush. 

The great French artist Meissonier once offered 
to paint a picture on the white satin fan of a little 
girl, but the foolish little maiden said: "I just 
guess you won't do any such thing; I don't want 
my nice fan dirtied up with your old paints!" 
" Thus, " said the great artist, "the child scorned 
what an empress would have prized." Has it not 
been thus with you? Christ has offered to come 
into your life and paint there the beautiful colors 
of love, hope, faith, patience, meekness, gentle- 
ness, and all the wondrous and beautiful concep- 
tions of the Father's heart, and you have locked 
the door against him or have been indifferent to 
his loving offer. 

When Jenny Lind returned from her American 
triumph, and was traveling in Italy, she went one 
day from Florence to the Convent of Vallombrosa, 



GALLIO THE INDIFFERENT. 109 



to which the young Milton went when on his 
travels. When she came to the chapel the monks, 
with courteous and deprecating regret, told her 
that no woman could enter. 

She smiled as she said : " Perhaps, if you knew 
who I am, you would let me in." 

"And who might the gracious lady be?" asked 
the monks. 

And when she said, "I am Jenny Lind," every 
head bowed, and the doors were flung wide open. 

Then, when she seated herself at the organ, and 
sang where Milton had sat and played, the monks 
crossed themselves reverently as they listened, and 
believed that Saint Cecilia had come back again 
to earth. 

O my indifferent brother, if you could only 
know the beauty and glory of Him who craves ad- 
mission to your heart, I am sure you would not 
remain indifferent and you would not continue to 
shut him out of your life ! If you only knew how 
the music he seeks to waken in your soul would 
soothe your sorrows, would heal your heartaches ; 
how it would inspire you to nobler deeds than you 
have dared ; with what hopes of heaven it would 
fill your thought, and what sweet peace would 
fall like a benediction upon your life, you would 
rouse from your lethargy this very moment and let 
him in. 



BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 



" Many also of them that had believed came, confessing 
and declaring their deeds. And not a few of them that 
practised curious arts brought their books together and 
burned them in the sight of all : and they counted the 
price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. 
So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed. n — 
Acts xix. 18-20 (Rev. Ver.). 

Paul was not usually a long time in a city with- 
out bringing something to pass. A common thing 
said about him and his companions was : " These 
that have turned the world upside down have come 
hither." The fact is that an earnest man who will 
preach the Gospel of Christ in its entirety in a city 
abounding in wickedness, is certain to run against 
opposition and stir up more or less excitement. 
Paul began to preach in Ephesus and very soon 
got into a collision with the soothsayers. These 
were, I suppose, a sort of fortune-tellers of their 
time. They gained their living by humbugging 
the people, as thousands like them do to-day. It 
seems to have been a great art in that day, and 

they had many manuscripts that were very valu- 

110 



BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. Ill 



able. These people came in contact with Paul, 
but soon found that he was more than a match for 
them. Paul was not alone, but was mightily en- 
dued by the Holy Spirit, so that he not only over- 
threw these frauds, but was given such powers of 
persuasion that he was able to save their souls. 
The exceeding sinfulness of their wicked business 
was brought home to their consciences with such 
tremendous moral force that they not only decided 
to quit their business, but they made public con- 
fession of their past sins, and proved the sincerity 
of their conduct by bringing their manuscripts, 
and the devices by which they had deceived the 
people, to the public square and making a bonfire 
of them. When a man so earnestly repents that he 
burns up ten thousand dollars' worth of the imple- 
ments by which he has been getting his living, the 
people generally do not doubt the honesty of his 
purpose. No wonder there was a great excitement 
in the city, and that under such testimony to the 
power of Christ to change the heart and life the 
word of the Lord should be scattered abroad and 
widely prevail over the minds of the people. Just 
imagine what an excitement there would be in 
this city if a hundred saloon-keepers should be- 
come so convicted of the sinfulness of their busi- 
ness that they should call a mass-meeting on the 
square, and one after another stand up at the base 



112 BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 

of the soldiers' monument and confess the wicked- 
ness of their deeds and declare their purpose of 
getting out of the shameful business and of hence- 
forth living Christian lives. And if then they 
should say that in order that you might know they 
had repented of their sins, and had determined on 
Christian lives, they would destroy the vile imple- 
ments of their occupation; and then if up the street 
there should come the great trucks, loaded with 
barrels, and if, one after another, we should see 
these barrels of liquor emptied in the street, and 
their contents running in the gutter, what excite- 
ment would be caused throughout the city and how 
the word of God would prevail with such a testi- 
mony ! 

The message which I bring to you is that if you 
find yourself to be a sinner against God, the wisest 
thing you can do is to follow the example of these 
men of Ephesus and at once burn up the bridges 
behind you and thoroughly commit yourself to the 
Christian life. There is nothing more fatal to the 
character than indecision. To go on day after day 
feeling the pressure of duty, drawn toward it, and 
yet not doing it, means the gradual disintegration 
of will power, and the breaking down of manliness 
or womanliness of soul, until you no longer have 
the power to decide. For power of will, like other 
things, is a matter of habit ; and it is possible to 



BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 113 

continue tampering with the will until it is de- 
stroyed. The most hopeless wrecks that drift 
upon the currents of life to-day are the men and 
women who through indecision or easy yielding to 
temptation have lost their self-mastery and the 
power to will. 

A distinguished man said not long ago that an 
old classmate called recently at his house. He 
was a young man of brilliant promise and began 
life side by side with this man who has made such 
a great success. But when he came to call on his 
classmate the other day, he was a tramp, and had 
the tramp's squalor and the tramp's limp. He 
had slept for weeks in the lowest lodging-houses. 
It had come to be useless to help him ; he had de- 
stroyed his power of will. His nature was like a 
rotten log, in which no nail would hold. His old- 
time friend could weep over him, he could keep 
him from starvation ; but he could not rouse in 
him the power of will to save himself. Twenty 
years ago this poor tramp's friends said of him: 
"He will be a great man"; fifteen years ago they 
said: "He has a good deal in him"; ten years 
ago they said somewhat more doubtfully: "He 
may succeed yet"; but now they never speak of 
him at all; he has been drowned out of their 
thought, and they have lost hope for him, and the 

failure has been his indecision. 
8 



114 BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 

One may fail just as certainly of the greatest and 
best purposes of life and never come to be a tramp. 
One's moral nature, one's spiritual fiber, may 
come to be a rotten wall, while yet the body is 
delicately clothed and the physical surroundings as 
comfortable as ever. 

These men of Ephesus were wise when they 
made it impossible ever to go back to their old evil 
trade. If they had kept those manuscripts, and 
there had come a time when they were out of work 
and had a hard time to make a living, the devil 
would have said to them: "What's the use of 
worrying? You've got the tools in the safe by 
which you can make money enough to live at 
ease." Do you not see what a tremendous lever 
the enemy of their souls would have had? By 
burning up the books they saved themselves from 
such temptations. Some of you need just this 
lesson. You are convinced that you ought to be a 
Christian. You are conscious that you are a sin- 
ner against God, that your life is wrong in his 
sight, and you have no excuse for your neglect of 
salvation that you would for a moment dare to 
offer in the blazing noonday of the judgment. 
And you are saying within your heart that you 
must do better. Certain sins about which your 
conscience has rebuked you, you are promising 
yourself, during the early days of this new year, 



BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 115 

you will forswear. But while you are thus ma- 
king resolutions you are excusing yourself from 
making any open confession of Christ. You fail 
to commit yourself before your friends and asso- 
ciates, and you hide these good purposes within 
your heart as tho they were something to be 
ashamed of.. Can you not see how frail and use- 
less such an effort must be? 

On the other hand, if you would follow the ex- 
ample of these Ephesians and come out openly on 
the Lord's side, confess Christ publicly as your 
Savior, bravely declare your purpose to be a 
Christian, you would serve notice on everybody 
that knows you of your change of purpose, and 
would be greatly strengthened and helped thereby. 
Such a course brings at once to your aid and sup- 
port the sympathy and prayers and fellowship of 
all sincere Christian people. It gives you, also, 
a strong vantage-ground of resistance to withstand 
the influence of any of your associates who are not 
Christians who might seek to draw you back again 
into sin; and, above all, you have the conscious- 
ness that you are doing right and the strong fel- 
lowship of Jesus Christ to sustain and comfort 
and bless you in this new life of righteousness. 

Possibly I speak to some who are sadly dis- 
couraged, and are almost ready to lie down in the 
chains of wicked habit and give up the fight. A 



116 BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 

man who is serving a twenty years' sentence in the 
Missouri penitentiary has refused to accept the 
pardon offered him by Governor Stephens. He 
gives as his reason for doing so that he has no 
friends, no money, and could find no employment, 
and so prefers the jail. Alas ! there is many a 
man in bondage outside of prison walls — in bond- 
age to wicked habits ; to lusts and passions that 
burn the soul and blacken it with their evil fires ; 
captured by evil imaginations ; the slaves of wicked 
thoughts and unholy influences. Do not, I beg 
you, give yourself over to such a. fate. So long as 
there is in your heart something that responds and 
echoes back to the song of home and heaven, there 
is enough of good left by which you can trust 
Christ and secure salvation. 

Henry M. Stanley, the African hero, claims that 
the one virtue which has given him such con- 
spicuous success is his strength to fight against 
odds when it looks hopeless. He says about him- 
self : " No matter how near death I might be, even 
if I were in the hands of the executioner and sur- 
rounded by guards, I should never yield without 
one last desperate struggle. I should be overpow- 
ered; but what of that? I had died fighting." 
This may seem unreasonable, but the greatest vic- 
tories in the history of mankind have been won by 
that kind of courage. Grant, Lincoln, Washing- 



BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 117 

ton, Nelson, Wellington, Greely, Nansen, all had 
that kind of courage that would fight after the case 
seemed hopeless, still struggling, hoping against 
hope. Would to God I could arouse that sort of 
a feeling in any discouraged soul! You tell me 
you have fought against your sin and failed. I say 
fight again. Publicly confess your sins and con- 
fess your purpose to take Christ as your Savior. 
Do not leave out of account the mightiest factor of 
all — that Christ has more than human power to 
bring to your aid. It is no mere human voice 
that says to you: "Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." 

I never stand in the pulpit on Sunday evening 
without feeling keenly how many hopes are repre- 
sented before me by young men and young women 
about whom distant fathers and mothers are anx- 
ious, and without a longing to be God's messenger 
to those who have not the shelter of the blessed 
home influences. I wondered the other day, when 
this little story came to me from Eochester, if it 
were one of the boys that I had shaken hands with 
at the church door whom his mother waited for 
there in the depot. The other evening, in that 
city, among the crowd that surged forward toward 
the gate as the St. Louis express rumbled into the 
Central depot, was a little old woman dressed in 



i 



118 BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 

black. Jostled this way and that by the hurrying 
crowd, she was about to pass through the gate 
when the gateman stopped her by a motion of the 
hand and a demand for her ticket. 

"I am not going away," she replied. "I didn't 
buy a ticket." 

"Then you can't go through here. Against 
orders, you know." 

" But, sir, my son is coming, and— - — " 

"Can't help it," was the hurried reply. "Stay 
here, and he will come to you." 

" Oh, sir, if he only would !" was the reply, and 
the tremble in the little woman's voice arrested 
the impatient murmur of those behind. " Oh, sir, 
if he only would ! but he died last week, and now 
they are bringing him home in a coffin. He was 
the only one I had — oh, thank you, sir!" — The 
gate was thrown wide open and the sad face of 
the little woman in black was lost in the crowd as 
she went to meet her dead boy. 

My heart goes out for the young men and young 
women who are not only away from the home fold, 
but are wandering away from the home Christ. 
How many mothers there are whose hearts are 
following their dear ones here with a prayer like 
that of the poet : 

"My lamb is missing from the nightly fold, 
And bleak the wind that sweeps the darkening wold. 



BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 119 



- Where wandereth she, so late and ever bold, 

With foolish feet? 
Hath any seen a lamb that's gone astray, 
Caught in the hidden thorns along her way, 
Or slipped a-down some steep, alack-a-day ! 

With piteous bleat? 

" Why to the storm is turned her tender breast ? 
Her fold was full of warmth and love and rest, 
There was no lamb so sheltered and caressed 

The sun beneath. 
Or is she housed in an alien fold, 
With simple head forgetful of the old, 
And that she soon will shiver with the cold 

Upon the heath ? 

"Some thief hath stolen my lamb, tho many had he, 
And all the world had but this one for me. 
An idle shepherd I shall ever be 

With idle crook. 
There was but one I ever wished to guide 
Oyer the chasm and up the mountainside, 
Or piped to on the meadows green and wide 
From shaded nook. 

" O thou Good Shepherd ! seek her in the path 
That many a terror, many a pitfall, hath. 
On her bewildered head let not thy wrath 

From heaven break ! 
To the calm pastures of the Better Land, 
Where all the flock are guided by thy hand 
And follow only as thou dost command, 

My lost lamb take 1" 



120 BURNING THE BRIDGES IN THE REAR. 

O wanderers, come back to the Shepherd Christ, 
who follows you with gentleness and love, seeking 
after you that he may save. Give him now all 
your heart ! 



THE FATAL BLUNDER OF A SHREWD 
GOVERNOR, 



" But after certain days, Felix came with Drusilla, his 
wife, which was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard 
him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus. And as he 
reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and the judg- 
ment to come, Felix was terrified, and answered, Go thy 
way for this time ; and when I have a convenient season, 
I will call thee unto me."— Acts xxiv. 24, 25 (Rev. Ver.). 

The devil has no snare by which he traps so 
many men to their eternal despair as that of pro- 
crastination. So long as a man believes there is 
time enough yet to repent, that the present is in- 
convenient, but a time will come in the future 
when everything will be propitious, Satan does 
not need to worry about him. He feels just 
as sure of him as if the judgment day were 
already over, and he had gone away into the 
outer darkness. 

In order to be saved, it is not enough to hear the 

Word of God, to be convinced of its truth, or even 

to be terrified because of our sins and the certain 

punishment they will bring. Felix experienced all 

121 



122 THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 



that, and yet did not accept Christ. Paul preached 
to him and his wife the most searching gospel ; he 
unfolded to him the glory of a righteous life, and 
with that mighty power which God gave to Paul 
as a preacher, he proclaimed to this governor, 
with honest words, the terrors of the judgment to 
come. Felix was greatly moved. He knew he 
was a sinner against God. His wickedness never 
seemed so black to him before. He shook like an 
aspen leaf before the picture of the just judgment 
that awaited his transgressions. All that Felix 
knew, and yet was not saved. ■ 

Some of you comfort yourselves by thinking 
that you can not be in any great danger of being 
lost, because many times you are filled with sorrow 
because of your sins. Your heart is yet tender, 
you say, and a touching song, or an incident full 
of pathos, will move you even to tears and fill you 
with a desire to be a better man or woman. Ah ! 
thousands have felt like that, only to have their 
hearts grow harder and harder until they were lost 
forever. Dr. Wayland Hoyt tells the story of a 
captain whom he met in the pilot-house of a Mis- 
souri River steamboat, and the captain asked Dr. 
Hoyt's judgment concerning his conduct. He said 
when he was a young man, and was first married, 
his wife was a Christian, and to please her he be- 
gan to go to church ; he never could hear singing 



THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 123 



and not be moved; the songs they sang in the 
church touched him strongly. They brought up 
forgotten memories and unloosed the springs of 
feeling ; he was overcome ; he could not help him- 
self, but wept whenever he went to church and 
heard tender songs. Because he wept, they 
thought he had become a Christian. His wife, the 
minister, and many friends pressed him to join the 
church. "But," said the captain, "I could not. 
I told them I had simply been stirred by songs as 
I always am. I knew I had not given up my evil 
ways. I knew I had not repented of my sins, and 
given myself over to my Savior. Tell me, was I 
wrong in refusing to join the church, tho songs 
touched me so, or right?" Dr. Hoyt wisely told 
him that he was right in not joining the church 
unless he really gave himself to Christ and re- 
pented of his sins, but that his great blunder was 
that he did not go on and give himself to Christ 
and trust Jesus to blot out his sins and lead him 
into a new life. Some of you are making this same 
blunder. Beligion is not simply good impulses. 
It is not simply tender emotions and tearful medi- 
tations. It is decision. "Choose ye this day 
whom ye will serve." "Whosoever ivill may 
come." It is not enough to tremble, not enough 
to be terrified like Felix. Like the jailer at 
Philippi you want to cry out, " What must I do to 



124 THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 

be saved?" and, like him, accept Christ openly and 
decisively. 

Felix made a fatal blunder in supposing that 
some future time would be better than the present. 
In the very nature of things it must get harder. 
Everything conspires to make this true. Habits 
of sin get stronger with every day's indulgence. 
Like the law of gravitation acting in the velocity of 
a falling stone, or like the current above a cataract 
increasing with every foot as one draws near to the 
awful precipice, so evil habits strengthen their 
deadly grip on the soul. If you can not break your 
habit now, what reason have you to believe you can 
break it after it has had time to grow stronger yet? 

Another factor must be taken into account— that 
every added year makes it more doubtful as to 
whether you will ever change your habits of life. 
Most people who become Christians at all accept 
Christ in their youth. Age tends to conservatism, 
tends to fixedness of character, either good or ill, 
and you are running an awful risk in allowing the 
gracious influences that are about you now to pass 
away and leave you unsaved. . God is calling you by 
his Spirit; if you do not yield to that influence it 
will be very much harder ever to move you toward 
a Christian life again. The scientists tell us that if 
you will take a little bit of phosphorus and put it 
on a sliver of wood and set it afire, it will give a 



THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 125 



very brilliant blaze ; but, bright as the blaze is, 
there drops from the phosphorus a white ash that 
coats the wood and makes it almost fireproof after- 
ward. And so it is when through the grace and 
mercy of God there has flamed up in your heart 
and conscience a conviction of sin. If you grieve 
the Spirit, if you silence your conscience, and let 
that illumination from heaven burn down to ashes 
and die out in your heart, you make it infinitely 
more difficult ever to kindle the light in your 
soul again. Do not grieve away the Spirit of 
God! 

Some of you fully expect to seek Christ soon, 
but with petty apologies that are unworthy of you 
are excusing yourselves from accepting him as 
your Savior here and now. Like Felix you are 
saying, "Go thy way till I have a convenient 
season" ; but, alas ! that time may never come to 
you. The peasants of southern Russia say that 
an old woman was at work in her house when the 
Wise Men of the East, led by the star, passed on 
their way to go and seek the infant Savior. 
" Come with us, " they said. " We are going to find 
the Christ so long looked for by men." "Not 
now," she replied. "I am not ready to go now; 
but by and by I will follow on and find him with 
you." But when her work was done the Wise Men 
had gone, and the star in the heavens which went 



126 THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 

before them had disappeared, and she never found 
her way to the Savior. God forbid that you 
should make that same blunder ! 

I went one night to see a woman who was dying. 
She knew she was dying, and in a few hours must 
stand before her God ; but her face was all aglow 
with peace and joy. I prayed with her, quoting in 
my prayer some of the precious promises of God's 
Word. "Oh, the promises! Oh, the promises! 
how sweet and true they are !" she said. I went 
away, and an hour afterward, when the last 
moment came, her final sentence was, " For me to 
live is Christ, but to die is gain." A brother min- 
ister went to call on another woman who was dy- 
ing. The mother of the lady met him at the door, 
wringing her hands in great distress. She cried 
out: "Oh! pray for my daughter; she is dying." 
The minister knelt near the bed, and tried and 
tried again to utter words in prayer, and could not. 
After struggling for a while with a strange feeling, 
he arose from his knees alive with the memory of 
what God has said : " There is a sin unto death : I 
do not say that you shall pray for it." As he rose 
to his feet the dying woman said: "I knew you 
could not pray for me, but I wanted to see you that 
I might send a message of solemn warning to my 
friends." After delivering this terrible message, 
she turned her face toward the wall, and continued 



THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR 127 



to repeat the words et Too late ! Too late !" until 
she was dead. 

Which of these deaths would you prefer to die? 
You are making your choice, it may be, now. 
Thank God ! it is not yet too late with you. God's 
call is in your ear and you have but to take him 
at his word to know Jesus Christ in the pardon of 
your sins. Now is the time to seek him. Do not 
let anything keep you away. The time to open the 
door and let your friend in is when he is knocking ; 
Christ is now knocking at the door of your heart. 

A young commercial traveler was spending the 
night in a hotel, and very early in the morning he 
heard through the thin partition separating his 
room from the next one the voice of a man singing. 
It was a hymn-tune which carried his thoughts 
back to his boyhood days, before he had fallen 
into sin. Soon the singing ceased, and the same 
voice was engaged in earnest prayer. The young 
man began to think of his own condition before 
God. A strong desire to pray filled his heart, but 
it was so long since he had prayed that he could 
not do so. After a few minutes he determined to 
ask his neighbor, to pray for him. The devil tried 
to stop him by insinuating the thought that it was 
not a convenient or proper thing to do; but it 
seemed to the young man that it was God's call to 
him and he dared not let it go by. He rose, 



128 THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 



dressed rapidly, and knocked on the door of the 
adjoining room, and was admitted. 

" What do you want?" asked the occupant, a fine 
old man with white hair. 

"I sleep in the next room," the young man re- 
plied, " and heard you praying. I wish you would 
pray for me." 

"Come in," was the quick response; and, clo- 
sing the door, he said, "Let us kneel down." He 
then offered an earnest prayer for his young 
neighbor. 

As they got up from their knees the young man 
was attacked with a sudden doubt as to the future, 
and he said: "I don't know that it is much use, 
my doing this, as I do not know any one in this 
way; and if I begin I shall not stand." 

"Oh, you think you will not stand," was the 
answer. 

"Yes," was the reply. 

"Then," rejoined the old gentleman, "let us 
kneel down again." 

They knelt down again, side by side, and the 
white-haired old Christian prayed in these terms : 
"O Lord, this young man says that he will not 
stand; neither will he, Lord, unless thou make 
him stand. Thou rememberest when, seventeen 
years ago, I knelt down and gave myself to thee, 
and thou hast kept me. Do the same for this 



THE BLUNDER OF A GOVERNOR. 129 



young man, and more also ; for Jesus Christ's sake. 
Amen." 

It was the turning-point of that young man's 
life. He went out from that hour to live a happy, 
prosperous, Christian man. God help you to fol- 
low his example ! 
9 



OBEDIENCE TO THE HEAVENLY 
VISION. 



"Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient 
unto the heavenly vision." — Acts xxvi. 20 (Rev. Ver.). 

Paul had been educated in the law, and was 
well equipped to have made an eloquent and effec- 
tive legal argument in the presence of King 
Agrippa if he had chosen so to do. But first of 
all, Paul was a Christian. Christ had taken pos- 
session of his life. His first and last thought 
about any course of conduct was : " Will it enhance 
the glory of Jesus Christ?" To him King Agrippa 
was not only a king— he was a man, a brother, one 
whom it was important to save as a gem for his 
Master's crown. Hence Paul did with him exactly 
as he would with the men to whom he was preach- 
ing every day — he told him his personal religious 
experience. Paul evidently thought that the most 
powerful sermon he could preach was to give his 
own testimony for Jesus Christ. And so, with 
perfect simplicity and straightforwardness, he tells 

Agrippa that he was a bigoted and bitter Pharisee, 

130 



OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION 131 



that lie hated Christ, and persecuted the people 
who loved him, and sought to go to Damascus that 
he might, if possible, crush out all the disciples of 
Jesus. But as he went in the way at noon he be- 
held a wonderful vision of the Christ whom he had 
despised, and a tender voice said to him : " Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for 
thee to kick against the goad. " And Paul assures 
Agrippa that he was at that moment convinced of 
the divinity of Jesus Christ, and from that day on 
had given his life up in obedience to that heavenly 
vision. 

There is a good message here for us as Chris- 
tians. The most powerful lever we have by which 
to move the hearts of those whom we desire to see 
won to Christ is our own personal religious ex- 
perience. If God has forgiven our sins through 
Christ, let us not for a moment hide our light 
under a bushel, but let it shine wherever we may. 
There is no such thing as living a happy, useful 
Christian life in an underhanded manner. It must 
be open and aboveboard. The Christ who laid 
aside the riches of glory in heaven and came down 
to bear insult and shame and poverty and death for 
us, standing out in the open, a target for every 
poisoned arrow that the hosts of hell could hurl 
against him, has a right to our straightforward 
and loyal service. 



132 OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION. 



A man said to me recently that lie could not un- 
derstand why he was not a happier Christian. He 
said he knew that he had given his heart to Christ, 
and he felt sure that his sins were forgiven. Every 
night he knelt down and in sincerity thanked God 
for the day's mercies, and prayed God's care over 
him while he slept. In the morning he knelt and 
prayed for the divine guidance. But while the 
deep burden of his guilt had passed away, there 
was a lack of gladness and joy about his religion 
that he could not understand. Then I asked him 
if he had entered into Christian fellowship with 
other Christians, and he said he had not. I in- 
quired if in the church, when opportunities were 
given to testify for Christ, he had stood up as a 
loyal friend to bear witness to the forgiveness of 
his sins ; but he had not done that either. Then 
I inquired if among those who were not Christians, 
he had told of his faith in Christ ; but that, too, he 
had omitted. "O man," I said, "how can you ex- 
pect to have the joy of your Christian life grow 
into enthusiasm and inspiration while you are hi- 
ding it in the dark as something to be ashamed of? 
Bring the coal of fire God has given you to the 
family hearth where other coals are flaming, and 
see how brightly it will glow and shoot forth 
flames of gladness." 

Doubtless some Christians to whom I now speak 



OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION. 133 



have been making the same mistake. Your dis- 
cipleship has not been open enough. Make the 
most notable thing about you to be that you are a 
Christian. Let people doubt your business opin- 
ions, doubt your politics, doubt everything else 
about you before they doubt that you love Jesus 
Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you thus 
honor Christ, as Paul did, other heavenly visions 
will come to you as they came to him. For Paul 
had times when he was lifted up into the third 
heaven, and joys and glorious visions were given 
him so marvelous and beautiful that he could not 
utter them by earthly tongue. Oh, let us come 
up on the mountain-top of an open, avowed conse- 
cration to Christ ! "With loving, devoted hearts let 
us sing : 

" Dwell who will in the valley below, 

I go up into the sunshine ! 
Free and warm and glad in its play, 
Light and life are in every ray, 
Burning to brighter and brighter day. 
Let who will in the valley stay, 

I go up into the sunshine ! 

" Mists are down in the valley below, 
Shadow and cloud wave to and fro, 
The rivers go creeping, sluggish and slow, 
The very winds have forgotten to blow. 
Dwell who will in the valley below, 
I go up into the sunshine 1 



134 OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION. 

" On the golden summit the morning sings 
Like a glad bird pluming his radiant wings. 
The torrents flash like living things, 
Sparkling and foaming the rivulet springs, 
Every bright drop like a joy -bell rings. 
I go up into the sunshine ! 

"There in the veins the life currents flow, 
The heart with fervor is all aglow, 
Trumpet calls the wild breezes blow, 
The soul like a warrior bold would go. 
Stay who will in the valley below, 
I go up into the sunshine !" 

The Christian experience of a soul made glad by 
the presence of Christ does good many times when 
we are unconscious of it. I never shall cease to 
thank God for an illustration I once had of that in an 
Eastern city. I was pastor for several years in one 
part of the city, and then removed to another part 
of the same city to take another pastorate. Dur- 
ing my first pastorate I met almost daily, on the 
street, a very prominent and popular physician. 
He was a brilliant man and eminently successful, 
but not a Christian, and was rather prejudiced 
against Christianity. His family attended another 
church from my own, and I had no acquaintance 
with them; my only acquaintance with the man 
was such as you have with one to whom you lift 
your hat, day after day, for years. He never came 
to my church, never heard me preach, and I had 



OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION. 135 



probably never spoken two minutes with him at 
any one time. After I had removed to a distant 
part of the city, he was taken ill with a lingering 
disease, and tho everything was done in his be- 
half that wealth and the best medical counsel to 
be had in the land could do, he grew steadily 
worse until it seemed certain that he must soon 
die. His family became greatly interested in his 
spiritual condition, and he himself was terrified at 
what he called " the leap into the dark" which he 
was about to take. His wife asked if he would 
not like to have the pastor of the church which she 
attended call and talk with him, but he declined. 
She mentioned others, some of whom he had 
treated professionally, and for whom she knew he 
entertained respect. But he said he did not wish 
to see them. Finally he said : " If I could see Dr. 
Banks, who used to be pastor of the Methodist 
church here, I believe he might help me. I never 
heard him preach, but whenever I met him on the 
street I used to feel after he had passed, 'There 
goes a man whose religion makes him happy.'" 
God knows I relate this humbly and not boastfully, 
but I can not express to you the thanksgiving of my 
heart to God when they sent me his message and 
his reason for sending it. I went to see him at 
once and was able by the grace of God to lead him 
to open his heart to Christ. Every week for many 



136 OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION. 

weeks I visited him, and found him, in spite of the 
most terrible pain, a happy and joyous Christian 
man, and he died in the triumphs of his faith in 
Christ. Often when tempted to discouragement I 
have been roused by his memory to think how im- 
portant it is that we be obedient to the heavenly 
vision which Christ has given us, and let it shine 
out in our faces and words, so that others who are 
in the darkness may see its light and be led to 
Christ. 

But what a splendid message there is here for 
you who are not Christians ! The essence of Paul's 
vision was that Jesus Christ was his Savior and his 
Lord, and had a right to his love and service. I 
am sure that some of you have that vision. Paul 
saw that his life hitherto had been a failure, be- 
cause he had been kicking against the goad. 
Think of the humble illustrations used — the ox 
that gives his neck to the yoke and pulls loyally 
in his master's service is the one that has peace 
and reward, but the ox that kicks against his 
master's command has only goading and punish- 
ment. So Paul had not had a happy life in per- 
secuting the Christians; many a bitter goading 
had come to him ; but now he saw that Christ was 
his rightful master, and by taking his yoke upon 
him he found the yoke easy and the burden light, 
and found, as Christ had promised, rest unto his 



OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION 137 



soul. Some of you have been making a failure in 
the same way. You have been going on in selfish- 
ness, refusing to Christ your rightful service, and 
you have had unrest ; your conscience has goaded 
you. At the bottom of every cup of sinful pleas- 
ure you have found the bitter dregs. If you will 
only cease your fighting against God, and accept 
this vision of Christ as your Savior, you may, like 
Paul, enter upon a new life that shall be full of 
peace. 

I call your especial attention to the fact that 
Paul found that Jesus had a right to his service, 
and that becoming a Christian was a perfectly 
natural thing to do. The devil has tried to make 
you believe that for you to become a Christian is 
something strange and unnatural, but it is not so. 
Sin is the invader, and to turn away from your 
sins with loathing and turn to Christ is like an 
exile coming home again. I repeat it. The most 
natural thing for a man to do is to repent of his 
sins, to cease his wrong-doing, and by the help of 
God begin to live the life of love and hope and 
faith. 

The keynote of Paul's life is obedience. He was 
obedient to the heavenly vision. Christ says 
that those who keep his words — that is, those who 
obey him — are the ones who truly love him. So 
the whole question of your salvation resolves back 



138 OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION 



to that one thing, Will you obey the Lord Jesus 
Christ? If you want to know how you may do that, 
you can not do better than to catch Paul's idea of 
it in the very next words that he spoke to Agrippa. 
Listen to this entire paragraph of his address : 
"Wherefore, O king Agrippa, I was not dis- 
obedient unto the heavenly vision: but declared 
both to them of Damascus first, and at Jerusalem, 
and throughout all the country of Judea, and also 
to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn 
to God, doing works worthy of repentance/' 
There it is — Eepent of your sins and turn to God, 
doing the kind of things which are proper for a 
man to do who has been sinning against Christ and 
now repents of it. The essence of repentance is to 
turn unto God. Eepentance is not only sorrow on 
account of sin, but a ceasing to sin, a turning away 
from sin, and beginning to do the things that will 
please Christ. When we come to that, we know 
that nothing save an open confession of Christ can 
possibly please him or ought to please him. 

How glad you ought to be that here in the midst 
of health and strength, with some opportunity to 
work for the Lord and show the genuineness of 
your repentance and your love for him, you may 
make such a confession. The physician of whom 
I spoke a moment ago had only one regret in all 
those last weeks of his life, and that was that he 



OBEDIENCE TO HEAVENLY VISION 139 



could not live long enough to show his gratitude 
and love for Christ. He used to say to me : " Oh, 
if I could only have back again the strength and 
health of which I was so prodigal, that I might 
use it to make everybody know how generous 
Christ has been to me, how great his love to save 
me who was so great a sinner; how gladly I 
would spend all my time and strength in his ser- 
vice." Such an opportunity could not come to 
him, but that blessed privilege is yours. You may 
accept Christ now. You may be obedient unto his 
commands, and have the joy of so serving him 
that multitudes may be led to Christ and his salva- 
tion through your obedience to the heavenly vision. 



THE SNARE OF THE SOFT SOUTH 
WINDS. 



"And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that 
they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and 
sailed along Crete, close in shore. But after no long time 
there beat down from it a tempestuous wind."— Acts xxvii. 
13, 14 (Rev. Ver.). 

Paul had urged most strongly against this voy- 
age, but the owner of the vessel and the captain 
thought they knew a great deal more about the 
sailing of a ship than any preacher, and so, when 
the sun shone with encouragement and the soft 
south winds were balmy, they laughed at Paul's 
warning and set out on their way with gay hearts. 
They had not gone very far, however, before they 
found out their mistake. The wind switched 
about, and was soon beating upon them in the 
fury of a tempest. The soft south winds had been 
so propitious and the weather so promising that 
they had gone in close to the shore, taking 
chances that they would never have thought of 
risking in a storm. They would have given 

anything now for more sea-room, but the ship 

140 



THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 141 

was caught in the tempest and driven helplessly 
before the wind. 

The special lesson which I wish to impress is 
the danger of being deceived by the soft south 
winds of prosperity and ease, which may be fan- 
ning your cheeks at the present time. A human 
life has its climatic changes, like the weather on 
the Mediterranean Sea; that the weather is fair 
to-day, and the wind blowing softly from the south, 
is no sign that it will continue so to-morrow, 
but rather an indication that it will not, for the 
weather is liable to change, and storms are certain 
to come ere long. 

Many young people are led to think lightly of 
the necessity of building up a strong and solid 
character, because life seems to them like a sunny 
sail on sheltered waters, with only soft south wind 
enough to make the voyage pleasant. They have 
been so hedged about by father and mother and 
friends, and so inspired by the natural buoyancy 
of youth and health, that it is hard for them to 
believe their sea — the sea on which they sail with 
such exultant hearts— may soon be swept by a 
fierce and bitter tempest and their frail boat caught 
and driven by the storm, and in danger of eternal 
shipwreck. 

Yet it is not well for us to be thus deceived. 
Every one of us must stand the storms of life, and 



142 THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 



it is worse than foolish — it is wicked — not to be 
making preparation for them. A wise shipbuilder 
does nor build his vessel for the calmest weather 
that is likely to be met, but he keeps in his mind 
the fury of the roughest storm. The ship will, of 
course, have many calm days, many days when 
sailing is only a pleasure, and when the winds in 
no sense test the capacity of the ship; but the 
shipbuilder who is master of his business keeps 
in mind the tempest which is likely to come at any 
time. He knows that any boat can make a good 
showing in fair weather, but the true test of the 
vessel's ability comes out in the time of storm. 

And so it is with a man or a woman. So long 
as we are young and strong, our friends are kind, 
good fortune favors us, and the soft winds of pros- 
perity fill our sails, there is no way to tell what we 
are capable of doing. No man really knows him- 
self so long as the winds and currents of life are 
with him ; it is when he has to make his way in 
the teeth of the gale — when health fails, or money 
is lost, or his friends desert him, and all his plans 
are awry; it is when the thunder of threatened 
ruin rolls over his head, and lightning flashes of 
strife and sorrow and wretchedness throw a bale- 
ful light over his storm-swept deck, revealing his 
tattered sails — it is only then that a man comes to 
know the metal that is in him. When everything 



THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 143 



is prosperous and the sea is smooth as a sheet of 
paper, the tide propitious, and the south wind 
soft, any skiff will float in safety ; but the man who 
rides the sea in a hurricane wants solid oak be- 
tween him and the boiling waves. 

Let no one be deceived. However peaceful and 
quiet your life may have been up to this time, 
there are storms which you must face in the future, 
and no one can tell how soon they may beat upon 
you. It is not whether you can do without the 
righteousness of God now; can you do without 
him in- the time of storm and struggle, when every- 
thing that is for you now will be against you? You 
must remember that every element of life with which 
you deal is uncertain. You say: "Well, there's 
one thing sure, I am young and strong, and nobody 
can take that from me." Alas! there is nothing 
so fragile and uncertain as the vigor of health and 
the strength of youth. People as strong and well 
as you are to-day have been laid on a sick-bed in 
less than a month's time to endure through months 
and years the agony of pain. Or some shadow 
like blindness may fall upon your life without 
warning, and leave a pall that never can be lifted. 
I remember at this moment a young man for whom 
I labored earnestly for many months, seeking to 
persuade him to give the fervor and freshness of 
his young manhood to Christ. He was a very en- 



144 THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 



gaging young man, with every sense and faculty 
alert and keen, and the consciousness of his youth 
and strength was a great delight to him ; and he 
would say to me : "I will seek Christ after a while. 
I expect to become a Christian, but I am very 
young yet, and there can surely be no hurry for 
one so young as I." One day he came home 
through the heat, not feeling well, and the next 
day he was worse. In a few days he complained 
that he did not see clearly ; in a month he could 
no longer see to read ; in two months sight had 
died out. More than a year has now passed, and 
he is hopelessly blind. God in his mercy has 
spared his life, and he has given himself to Christ, 
and he who is the Light of the world is to-day the 
great comfort of his heart. All the things that 
once comforted him have passed out of his reach. 

So it is with money, and your power to earn it. 
And your friends, who are the very bulwark of your 
life as it seems to-day, are all subject to sickness, 
to change, and death. Ah ! the very elements are 
full of storms for you. 

I do not say these things to discourage you or 
make you sad. I say them because they are true, 
and it is infinitely important that you should 
recognize them, and not go to sea in a leaky vessel, 
without a chart or a compass or a pilot, for your 
sea will certainly be swept by the storm, and you 



THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 145 

will need to see that your character is built of 
sterling righteousness; that your chart and com- 
pass are as true as the Word of God; and that 
Jesus Christ is the Pilot and the Captain of your 
ship. 

Your ship may be said to be your principles, 
the solid structure on which you live and do 
business day by day. Ask yourself now the 
solemn questions : " Is my ship of principles all 
right? Is it pleasing to God? Does it deserve to 
weather the storm?" The other day a young man 
gave me as his excuse for not becoming a Christian 
that he could not be a Christian in his business. 
He said it was impossible in the confidential posi- 
tion which he held. He declared that his em- 
ployer demanded of him that he should misrepre- 
sent things, and deal dishonestly, and that he 
would lose his place if he were to undertake to live 
a Christian life. I told him he had better a 
thousand times lose his place than go on doing 
what he knew was not right. That young man, 
and every young man like him, may go on water- 
logged for a while, but it is a leaky ship, and is 
certain to go to bottom in the end. How glad I 
was to hear another young business man say that 
when he could not succeed in business and be hon- 
est toward God and man, he would quit the business 

and stand faithful to God. That is the only safe 
10 



146 THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 

course, and a man who will stick to that has under 
him a ship that can face the teeth of the gale. A 
man with that kind of a ship has a chart and com- 
pass that can be relied upon. The Bible is the one 
sure chart of human life. The men who have 
turned away from it, however shrewd and cunning 
they may have been, however rich in the treasures 
of the world, have run on the rocks in the end ; 
but no man ever yet took God's Word for his 
counsel, and directed his life by it day by day, and 
came to failure. 

To such a ship Jesus Christ comes as Pilot and 
Captain, and when he is on board nobody need 
fear the waves, for he is Lord of the waves. Do 
you remember that night on the Sea of Galilee? — a 
sudden storm had come up, and the friends of 
Jesus were in the midst of it, ready to perish, and 
Christ came walking to them on the waves; and 
they were filled with fear at the sight of him and 
thought it was a ghost, when he spoke in loving 
assurance, " Lo, it is I ! be not afraid." And when 
he came into the vessel and spoke to the troubled 
waters they soon came to the land with peace and 
safety. So Christ is willing to come to you. He 
will repair your ship. He will build it anew on a 
keel of righteousness as solid as the eternal hills. 
He will stay with you when the south winds blow 
softly and when the tempests rage. He knows all 



THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 147 



the coast line of your human life. Not a treacher- 
ous rock, or a dangerous current, or a sand-bar 
stretching across the channel but he knows it well. 
He is not a captain without experience. The Cap- 
tain of our salvation was made perfect through 
suffering. He has undergone all our temptations, 
and stood all the storms of human life, but has 
always come off victorious. 

In addition to all the danger of shipwreck that 
may come to you from the outside, so long as you 
are a sinner against God you carry within your 
own heart the elements of disaster and destruction. 
News has come recently of a most terrible fire in 
Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is a 
strange region there. Everything seems saturated 
with oil; the air one breathes is laden with the 
odor. Not only is black naphtha to be seen in 
monster fountains, but white naphtha flows of it- 
self in places. Everything is saturated — all round 
between the wells lie lakes of seething naphtha ; the 
roads have naphtha streams by the sides. And it 
only took one rashly thrown match to set miles 
in a blaze with an awful conflagration. A man 
who is a sinner against God, and who is hiding 
down under the hatches of his life wicked ambi- 
tions, selfish indulgences, evil purposes, rebellious 
thoughts against Christ, carries in his own nature 
the elements of combustion that only require some 



148 THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 



devil's match of evil temptation to set his soul on 
fire to his ruin. 

Eemember this, that no man is safe unless he is 
genuinely and sincerely good, and that no man can 
be truly good in the sight of God unless he yields 
his life in obedience to the will of God. Are you 
doing that? If not, are you willing to do that 
now? Will you now turn from your sins and ac- 
cept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? 

Christ is seeking for you now. Dr. Horton, of 
London, tells of a Scotchman who had been in an 
evangelistic meeting up in a Highland town, and 
had been deeply moved. He longed to find Christ, 
and he left the church with his whole heart set 
upon that. As he went down the steps into the 
street a poor old woman just ahead of him slipped 
and fell. His heart was tender, and he came up to 
her and said, " Do take my arm and let me help 
you." The old woman said to him : " You must be 
one of the Lord's bairns or you would never offer 
your arm to an old woman like me." He said, 
"No, I am not; but I am seeking"; and the old 
woman said: "All right, for when there be two 
seeking there is sure to be a finding." 

Christ is always seeking after men and women 
with infinite love. All through these long years 
since he died upon Calvary's cross, he has been 
seeking after lost men and women as a shepherd 



THE SNARE OF THE SOUTH WINDS. 149 



seeks after the wandering sheep lost in the moun- 
tain canons and in danger of being devoured by the 
wolves. All through the years of your life since 
first you strayed from the innocency of your baby- 
hood, he has been seeking you. He is seeking 
you now. Even tho you have thrust him away, 
and taken the tiller of your life-ship in your 
own hands, until in your folly the storm gathers 
about you and you are threatened with wreck, 
even now he comes through the darkness of the 
storm and is saying to you, " Lo, it is I ! be not 
afraid." 



THE EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN 
LIFE. 



"To-day if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your 
hearts, as in the provocation." — Heb. in. 15 (Rev. Ver.). 

The emphatic date in a human life is to-day. 
Yesterday is beyond our reach as certainly as 
tho a thousand years had intervened. To-mor- 
row may never come to us; or if it comes, it 
will be mortgaged by duties of its own. To-day is 
where God puts the emphasis of life, and where 
we should put it. This is true especially because 
what we are doing day by day is dictating destiny 
for the future. It is well to notice with care the 
special reason which Paul gives for heeding the 
call of Christ to-day. It is because we are in 
danger of hardening our hearts so that the heavenly 
call will no longer have any effect. History and 
observation alike prove that Paul is correct in that 
fear. There is a hardening influence about sin, 
and it is impossible to pursue an evil course with- 
out being hardened in the conscience by the very 
recurrence of the habits we indulge. 

Many a young man going out from a pure Chris- 

150 



EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 151 



tian home where his teaching has been full of 
reverence toward God and purity of speech, has 
felt loathing and a distinct shock to his moral 
nature on hearing profane language. But if he 
has gone on with such associations, he has been 
astonished, after a little, to find himself becoming 
so accustomed to hearing the name of God pro- 
faned that it no longer awakens even a serious pro- 
test in his mind and heart. A young man talking 
to me on this subject not long ago, said that he 
was reared in a Christian home where he had al- 
ways treated God's name with reverence, and that 
after he went to live away from home, he well re- 
membered the first time a profane oath crossed his 
lips. He was shocked and abashed to the very 
heart. A flush of shame burned on his cheek and 
his eyes filled with tears as he thought how horri- 
fied his mother would be if she knew of his profane 
speech. His conscience, too, was aroused, and for 
a time he guarded himself ; but not being a Chris- 
tian it was not long before the power of evil asso- 
ciation told upon him, and he swore again. The 
second time the revolt was not so great, and so he 
went on until he acquired the silly, wicked habit, 
and until he would take the name of God in vain 
unconsciously, not knowing that he had done so. 
His heart had hardened on the subject until his 
very spirit had become irreverent. 



152 EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 



Other sins have the same effect, and there is no 
sin that men commit, if persisted in, that will not 
steadily harden the heart until the sinner will no 
longer be keenly alive to the deadly character of 
sin. Isaiah says, "Wo unto them who call evil 
good, and good evil." If a man harden his heart 
and sear his conscience as with a hot iron by con- 
tinuing in sinful habits, there will come a time 
when he will do the evil and scarcely know that 
it is evil. 

One may harden the heart in listening to the 
Gospel while yet refusing its gracious influence. 
The blacksmith hardens iron by melting and cool- 
ing it again and again, and so a man may harden 
his heart by resisting the convictions of sin that 
are aroused in his conscience by hearing the 
Gospel. That hardening process has already gone 
on to a perilous point in some of you. A man said 
to me since this series of meetings began : " I know 
that I am a sinner against God. I know that I 
ought to be a Christian. I am convinced that I 
should confess Christ, but it would be folly to start 
without more feeling on the subject than I have 
now. I have not so much feeling as I have had at 
other times." Alas! he probably never will have 
as much feeling as he has had at other times. 
The time was when God strongly moved upon his 
conscience, when his heart was melted down before 



EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 153 



the tenderness and gentleness of Christ, when he 
shed tears because of his sin, and the Holy Spirit 
mightily strove with him to bring him to repent- 
ance. But he refused the divine call. He grieved 
away the Spirit of God. He threw himself into 
wordliness and sin that his emotions might be 
cooled down so that they should not disturb him, 
and he has succeeded far too well. He has hard- 
ened his heart against the message of God's mercy. 
Have not some of you done the same thing? There 
was a time when you were very easily moved on the 
subject of religion. You can remember when you 
could scarcely hear read or told the story of 
Christ's being crowned with thorns, or nailed to 
the cross, without your heart being tenderly 
touched and melted down at the thought of his 
love for you ; but now you can hear these things 
almost unmoved. What are you going to do? 
Will you go on and on, letting your heart get 
harder and harder still, until it is like adamant, 
and your face is set like a flint toward ruin? God 
forbid ! 

To-day is important because every day that is 
spent in indecision or in rejection of Christ 
strengthens in your heart the cord of rebellion that 
holds you away from Christ. Once there was an 
overladen coal-barge on the Ohio Eiver. One 
morning a sailor came to the captain and told him 



154 EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 

that the water was gaining upon the vessel, but the 
captain was a dictatorial, wicked man, and drove 
him away with an oath. The faithful man came 
again and again with his warning, but each time he 
was unheeded. Finally the barge began to give 
undoubted evidence of being in a sinking condi- 
tion. The captain ordered the men to the boats. 
They took their places. He then said, "I told 
you there was plenty of time," and took his huge 
knife to cut the cable which bound the boat to the 
barge. But he fell back with a cry of horror. 
The cable, instead of being a rope, was an iron 
chain! So the slight resistance to Christ caused 
by timidity or misunderstanding, which was only 
a small cord in your boyhood or girlhood and 
could easily have been overcome, as the years go 
on comes to be an iron cable strongly fastened in 
the sins of your daily life. 

A very strong illustration is suggested in the 
last four words of the text — " as in the provoca- 
tion." The reference is to the manner in which 
the Israelites hardened their hearts against God 
and provoked him in the wilderness, and for their 
sin failed at the last to enter the Promised Land. 
Once they were at the very door of the land of 
Canaan, the land of abundance, and Moses sent 
the spies over ; and when they came back they all 
brought one story about the beauty of the country. 



EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 155 



They all agreed that it was fertile, that it flowed 
with milk and honey and abounded in grapes and 
corn. Caleb and Joshua, young men of decision 
who trusted God, urge that they go up at once and 
possess the land, trusting in the power of God to 
make the conquest. But the others were afraid. 
They had caught sight of some giants, and de- 
clared to Moses that they were no match for these 
people, and that if they started in to possess the 
Promised Land they would be driven out in dis- 
grace and shame, or utterly destroyed. The result 
was that for forty years they wandered in the wil- 
derness, suffering hardships indescribable, and 
finally all died without another sight of Canaan, 
except Caleb and Joshua, the two young heroes 
who had dared to believe God. 

Some of you are talking like the spies who were 
afraid of the giants. You want to be a Christian. 
You are thoroughly convinced that a true Chris- 
tian life is the happiest life in the world, and you 
feel that you would give anything if you could be 
at peace with God and know that your life was 
pleasing to Christ ; but you imagine there are such 
giants in the way that you fear to start lest you 
falter and be overcome and drop out by the way- 
side. Thus you are hardening your hearts and 
losing the blessed opportunity which, it may be, 
will never come to you again. 



156 EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 

Do not forget that it is your very salvation which 
is at stake. It is the day of salvation that Paul is 
speaking about. You are in danger. Salvation 
means that there is something to be saved from. 
Your sin against God is not merely a blunder, or a 
mistake ; it is not merely a question of taste ; it is 
a crime which must be punished unless forgiven 
through your penitence and faith in Jesus Christ. 
Salvation means that you are in peril, and that you 
need, above all things, a refuge where you may 
hide your guilty soul from punishment. You can 
not stand on your own merits, for you would be 
the worst witness that could be called at the judg- 
ment. You would be forced to admit that you 
were a sinner against God, and out of your own 
mouth you would be condemned. Your own mem- 
ory and your own conscience would be all the 
witnesses it would be necessary to call to make 
your condemnation sure. Your wicked deeds are 
all treasured up. Sometimes you forget your sin 
for a long time. Conscience seems to be drugged, 
and sleeps heavily, giving you little or no disturb- 
ance; but when you think your sin is buried the 
deepest, suddenly, like a flash of lightning out of 
a clear sky, the death of a friend, or the sudden 
sinfulness of a neighbor, or a shaft from God's 
Word uncovers your heart and your sin stares you 
in the face as fresh and alive as ever. Ah ! there 



EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 157 

will be no lack of witnesses at the great assize. 
There is only one way to get rid of your sins, and 
that is to have them forgiven ; to have them blotted 
out in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. How 
tenderly God's Word calls you to salvation. By 
every possible illustration God seeks to make the 
invitation gracious and kindly. Hear Jesus say- 
ing: "As a hen gathereth her brood under her 
wings, but ye would not." And long before that 
the voice of the Psalmist declared: "He shall 
cover thee with his pinions, and under his wings 
shalt thou take refuge." Did you ever see the 
little chickens, pursued by a hawk, run at the cry 
of alarm from the mother hen, and hide themselves 
under her wings? So God is calling you at this 
hour to fly to the wings of his love and find refuge. 

But that means action on your part. Action 
now. The hawk is in the air above you. If the 
wing of Christ's love is to be your refuge, you 
must fly to it at once. In the old days in Israel, 
when a man was out on the hills with the avenger 
of blood pursuing at his heels bent on taking his 
life, there was only one way to safety, and that 
was to fly with haste until he put the walls of the 
City of Refuge between him and his pursuer. O 
gather up all your powers now, and haste to put 
the blood of Jesus Christ between you and your 
sins ! The call is now. The emphasis is on to- 



158 EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 

day. The opportunity will soon pass, but salva- 
tion may be yours if you will act now. 

Once in a fire in New York city, a fireman of 
a hook and ladder company was at the top of a 
swaying ladder, which fell short by a whole story 
of a fifth-floor window from which a terror-stricken 
woman was leaning. Fire and smoke were behind 
her, and there was no time to descend and get a 
longer ladder. The heroic fireman twisted one leg 
about the top rung of the ladder, and, supporting 
himself with his other leg, leaned out at a sharp 
angle. This required great strength. The ladder 
swayed fearfully. 

"Jump!" shouted the fireman. 

There was no time to wait on the decision. Had 
the woman waited a single moment her fate would 
have been sealed ; but she did not hesitate. Like 
a flash of lightning she saw her chance and took it. 
She jumped from the window and the fireman 
caught her. There was an instant when this sud- 
den addition of weight made the escape of both 
from an awful fall a fearful improbability. Then 
the man's nerve and strength came to the rescue. 
Slowly he recovered his balance and carried the 
woman down the ladder amid the cheers of ap- 
plauding thousands. 

Jesus Christ, your Savior, has made of his own 
body nailed to the cross a ladder over which you 



EMPHATIC DATE IN HUMAN LIFE. 159 



may climb from peril to salvation. No one ever 
yet has been lost who trusted all to him, but to- 
morrow may be too late. To-day is yours. To- 
day is the day of salvation. " If ye hear his voice, 
harden not your hearts, as in the provocation." 



THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 



" Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birth- 
right."— Heb. xii. 16 (Rev. Ver.). 

Esau was a bright young fellow. He had many- 
attractive qualities. He was open-handed and 
generous in his ways, fond of outdoor sports, liked 
to hunt, and was the kind of a person that is apt 
to be popular on all sides. But many a brilliant 
young man has made a sad outcome of life because 
of the same fatal poison that lurked at the heart of 
Esau. 

Esau cared far more for present comfort and en- 
joyment than for the building up of a strong char- 
acter and preparing for a permanently successful 
career. He could not do without his dinner, but 
he could get along without the blessing of God. 
The sin of Esau did not begin that day when he 
came home from the hunt, having had bad luck 
and taken no venison, tired out, and hungry as a 
famished wolf. It had begun a good while before 
that. The fact was, that he cared very little 
about his birthright. Altho his father was a good 

man who lived a life of prayer and honor, Esau 

160 



THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 161 

seems to have been given up to physical enjoy- 
ment. To eat and drink and be merry, to spend 
his days in the wild freedom of the hunt, to deny 
himself no sort of physical indulgence that tempted 
— that was Esau's idea of a good time. His appe- 
tite for meat was a great deal stronger than his 
love for truth and honor. He held it to be a little 
thing that he was the son of one of God's princes. 
He had gotten out of sympathy with the prayerful 
spirit of his father's house, and had come to the 
point where he regarded his birthright lightly, and 
thought he had well sold it when he got a pot of 
meat for it. 

The question for us to answer is, " What are we 
doing with our birthright?" for the appetites of 
the flesh are as dangerous temptations to-day as 
they were in the days of Esau. On every side of 
us are multitudes who are selling their birthright 
to clean bodies and pure hearts, their birthright 
to fellowship with Jesus Christ and a hope of 
heaven, for the physical indulgences of an hour. 

In Chile, among the Andes Mountains, the Gov- 
ernment has been paying a large bounty for the 
destruction of condors, as these fierce birds preyed 
on the herds of cattle. The method of destroying 
them is very interesting. A dead horse or cow 
is placed on the plain at the foot of a mountain, 

where it can be easily seen from all points. After 
11 



162 THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 

placing their bait, the hunters set up their tents 
and the canvas flies that conceal them and their 
horses from the view of the condors. Very soon, 
from their peep-holes in the canvas, they see the 
condors coming down through the clouds, from 
the mountain crests, straight toward the bait. 
They wait patiently until a dozen or more of the 
birds have eaten heartily of the meal provided for 
them, and then they spring to their horses, which 
stand ready, bridled and saddled, for the chase. 
In a moment they are off, lariats in hand, after 
the condors. Now when a condor has gorged it- 
self it can not rise for flight until it has run a 
long distance to give itself momentum. The 
hunter's method is to follow the birds for half a 
mile or more, and then as they rise to throw the 
lariats over their heads. An expert lassoer can 
send his rope over a condor's head and so manage 
it that it slips down until it touches the shoulders 
of the wings before it tightens on the bird. The 
condor is then a prisoner, but able to use his pow- 
erful pinions, breathe freely, and lead the horse- 
man a wild chase across the plain, turning in all 
directions in his frantic flight, but unable to rise 
higher than the length of the lasso. When the 
rider tires of the sport, or the bird becomes suffi- 
ciently weakened, he turns the horse about and 
leads the chase himself, forcing the unwilling bird 



THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 163 



along until it falls, spent, to the ground, and is 
dragged to death at the horse's heels. 

It is thus that the devil lassoes men and women. 
Men and women created for noble deeds, and en- 
dowed with possibilities of soul flight in a lofty 
spiritual atmosphere, with ability to rise in the 
face of the Sun of Righteousness, and rejoice in 
fellowship with the good and pure of earth and 
heaven, squander their holy birthright, and, cap- 
tured by their fleshly appetites and lusts, lose 
their power to soar above the earth. Is it not 
true that during this series of meetings some of 
you, convicted of your sin, have sought to break 
away and fly aloft toward Christ your Savior? 
But you have felt the devil's lasso of some evil 
habit tighten about your neck, and your wings 
have beaten, as it were, the empty air. There is 
One who is able to cut that awful lariat that holds 
you. Jesus Christ can make you free, and whom 
the Son of God makes free is free indeed. 

Many times a man's birthright of innocency and 
hope passes out of his possession so gradually 
that he does not realize the awful loss until it is be- 
yond recall. If at the beginning of any course of 
sin a man had the whole question thrust before 
him, and knew how much was at stake, he would 
start back in horror. 

A curious case is puzzling the doctors in one of 



164 THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 

the Brooklyn hospitals. It is that of a man whose 
hair turned white in a night. When he went to 
bed in the evening, his hair was brown. When he 
awoke in the morning and looked at himself in the 
glass, he staggered with surprise, and well he 
might, for his hair and eyebrows were white as 
snow. The physicians could make nothing of the 
case, but conjectured that he had been poisoned 
with some materials in which he had worked. If 
a man were tempted suddenly to turn from good to 
bad like that, he would start back in loathing. 
If the young man of twenty, full of the vigor and 
strength of his young manhood, were invited sud- 
denly, in a single hour, to become a drunkard with 
blear eyes and blotched face, bloated body and 
shattered nerves, he would start back in horror at 
such a proposition. No young man in the land is 
fool enough to sell his physical birthright at one 
auction like that, but the devil works insidiously. 
It is only a single glass of sparkling wine that 
tempts, and all the miserable outcome is hidden 
in the maze. Men go down into wicked habits by 
such easy gradations that they are shocked at 
nothing until they find themselves lost in the mire. 

O my young friend, hear me when I make the 
heart-searching inquiry, Are you selling your 
birthright by piecemeal? Be sure that if you 
have in any way mortgaged your soul to Satan, 



THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 165 

the time will come when with merciless cruelty he 
will foreclose that mortgage. 

Paul declares to the Philippians that our right- 
ful citizenship is in heaven. We were born the 
sons of God. It is an awful thing to count that 
citizenship a little thing and squander it on pass- 
ing pleasures that will soon turn to bitter dregs. 
It is a great thing to be the citizen of a country 
with a strong government back of you, able to de- 
fend you. When the present Cuban insurrection 
broke out, Dr. Alberto Diaz, one of the most 
successful Christian missionaries in the world, 
was arrested at his home in the city of Havana, 
thrown into prison, and sentenced to be shot the 
next morning. At evening two coffins were 
brought in and placed in his sight. One was for 
himself, and one for his brother John, who was in 
prison with him. The two brothers, when they 
saw the coffins, fell on each other's neck and wept 
a little, but soon wiped away their tears, saying : 
"Others have died for Jesus; why not we? So 
let us die like men !" 

With this conclusion they went to sleep. In the 
middle of the night the soldier who was marching 
back and forth, keeping the death-watch, came to 
Alberto Diaz, woke him up by gently kissing his 
hand, and said in a vigorous whisper: "Pastor! 
pastor! I'm not a Spaniard. I'm a Cuban, and a 



166 THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 

member of your church. I got myself put on 
guard here to-night that I might save your life. 
Tell me how to do it !" 

Diaz sat up, rubbing his eyes, and said : " Well, 
if you're what you say you are, get me a pencil 
and paper." 

The soldier did so. 

Diaz wrote a telegram and said, " Get this into 
the hands of my wife." 

His wife sent it to Atlanta, Ga. From At- 
lanta a telegram went to the Secretary of State 
at Washington. He cabled to Madrid, and from 
Madrid a cablegram went back to Havana saying 
"Don't shoot Diaz. He is an American citizen. 
Banish him." All this in a few hours' time. 

So it was worth something; it was worth the 
man's life to be an American citizen. It is worth 
eternal life to be a citizen of the kingdom of 
heaven, to be a joint heir with Jesus Christ to 
an inheritance that is incorruptible and full of 
glory ! 

Last autumn there was a good deal said in the 
newspapers about a scheme to purchase Thomas 
Jefferson's famous home in Monticello and make 
of it a public reservation; but the plan was 
thwarted at the very start by the refusal of its 
owner, Mr. Jefferson M. Levy, a descendant of the 
great commoner, to part with it. He said, when 



THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 167 

asked about the project, that it was a matter of 
personal and family pride with him that Monticello 
be kept up, and that no sum of money could possibly 
compensate him for the loss of the estate. Some 
years ago, "William M. Evarts, then Secretary of 
State, urged Mr. Levy to allow him to ask Con- 
gress to purchase Monticello. His answer was: 
"Mr. Secretary, if you offered me all the money 
this room would hold, you could not tempt me." 
Mr. Evarts replied: "Well, Mr. Levy, I admire 
you, and do not blame you. 5 ' 

There is something in every true, generous 
heart that responds to such fidelity to a noble 
family inheritance. But how much more precious 
is your inheritance as the son or the daughter 
of God — the privilege of communion with your 
heavenly Father; the right to dwell at peace, as- 
sured of his divine protection, knowing that all 
things work together for your good because his 
arms are about you ; the privilege of walking arm- 
in-arm in sweet yoke-fellowship with Jesus Christ, 
your Savior, the one altogether lovely character in 
human history. And yet if you persist in your 
sin you forfeit all that, you squander that divine 
birthright. And what do you get in return? A 
morsel of meat, with the aching heart, the scorpion 
whip of the conscience, and the ages of remorse 
to follow. I am sure that your reason and every 



168 THE SQUANDERED BIRTHRIGHT. 

noble impulse of your soul cry out against such 
prodigality. 

Ah, but, you say, it is already too late. I have 
squandered my birthright. I have already gorged 
myself in wicked indulgence, the lasso of evil habit 
is already around my neck, and I am being dragged 
at the heels of my captors. Oh, I thank God that 
even in so sad a plight I may bring you a message 
of hope. Jesus Christ, your Savior, who died on 
the cross to redeem you, passes this way with love 
in his heart, a pardon in his hands, and will, if 
you will accept him, set you free from your pitiable 
condition. Do not refuse an offer so gracious, or 
turn your back on a freedom so sweet ! 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 

"James, the Lord's brother."— Gal. i. 19 (Rev. Ver.). 

This particular James was the son of Joseph 
and Mary, and grew up in the home of the car- 
penter in Nazareth, and had, no doubt, played 
among the shavings in the little carpenter shop 
with Jesus. He was the brother of the Lord. We 
do not know just when he became, also, one of the 
disciples of Christ. From the record that is given 
us of Christ's first sermon at Nazareth, where the 
people sought to kill him by throwing him over a 
precipice, we know that his brothers were still at 
home and James had not yet joined him. We are 
surely not astonished that a young man who had 
grown up in fellowship with such a brother as 
Jesus must have been should have been lonely at 
home without him, and should have early craved 
the privilege of following him and sharing his fate. 

It is this striking phrase, the brother of the 

Lord, and the deep and holy meaning that is 

breathed from it for our help, which I desire that 

we shall study together. We can imagine with 

169 



170 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



what loving reverence the men of that little band of 
Jesus 's friends would naturally speak of one who 
could be called by such a sacred name as the 
brother of the Lord. Surely James could never - 
have heard himself called by this name without 
feeling the great honor which was done him, and 
without deep humility. He must often have felt 
unworthy of it when he reflected with sorrow that 
he had held back while even strangers were giving 
their love and allegiance to his brother, and had 
not been the first to become his true and loyal dis- 
ciple. And so I think any one of us who should 
hear himself called the brother of Jesus — and 
surely every Christian man who is giving loyal 
service to Christ has a right to be so called — must 
be filled with humility at such an honor as he 
looks back over the unworthiness of his past life. 
But, thank God ! past sins do not make it impos- 
sible for us at the present time to be in deed and 
in truth the brothers and sisters of the Lord. 
Jesus is so great in the breadth of his charity and 
love that not only can he forgive his open enemies, 
but he can do what most of us find so much harder 
— forgive the desertion of friends on whom he has 
heaped the evidences of his love. 

Now let us, every Christian, think of ourselves 
as bearing this title. How should I live who am 
to stand before the world as the Lord's brother, 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



171 



or the Lord's sister? Paul went up to Jerusalem 
an entire stranger to all tlie Christian people there. 
They were, no doubt, very curious to see him. 
His bitter persecution of the Christians, his pres- 
ence at the death of Stephen, his remarkable con- 
version — all this would make him a marked char- 
acter; and when he came to visit Peter, Peter 
introduced him to James, and no doubt used this 
expression which Paul quotes. Let the picture 
come back before you: Paul comes as a visitor. 
Peter and James are in a room together. Paul is 
admitted, and Peter, the leading, masterful spirit 
of the disciples, comes forward and receives Paul 
lovingly, and then turns about and with a reverent 
tone almost like a caress he says to Paul, " This is 
James, the Lord's brother." 

Now I want to ask very earnestly, How much 
must it have meant for James himself, in his own 
watchfulness over his conduct and spirit and life, 
to be constantly regarded and continually presented 
to strangers as the brother of Jesus Christ? It 
surely could not have failed to give him a very 
keen sense of responsibility for maintaining the 
honor of Jesus. In James's case it involved the 
good name of the family, the reputation and stand- 
ing of everything that was dear to his heart. Why 
should it not be so with us? We have been re- 
deemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



172 THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



He has sought after us as poor lost sinners, and 
has knocked at the door of our hearts until we have 
opened them to his coming, and in the truest and 
noblest sense we are the brothers and sisters of 
Jesus Christ. Surely if our divine Lord is not 
ashamed of us, and is willing to call us his brethren 
and to trust his good name in our keeping, we 
ought to accept the term at once with humility and 
a deep and holy joy. 

The next thought, however, is very startling, but 
the logic will not be refused when once we have 
come thus far in our thinking. It is that men and 
women are forming their opinions of Jesus by 
what they see in us. The name of the whole 
family of Jesus Christ, in heaven and in earth, is 
committed as a sacred trust to you and to me for 
our keeping. There can be no more solemn ques- 
tion than this: "How am I keeping that sacred 
trust? Am I justifying the confidence that Jesus 
reposed in me when he called me to be his brother 
or his sister?" 

I am sure that it is a sad reflection to many of 
us that our representation of Christ is often so 
imperfect, that many times when we are prosper- 
ous and happy in a temporal and worldly way we 
are so forgetful of the Lord and do not show forth 
his spirit so much in those glad days which we 
owe to his love as we do when the hard hand of 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



173 



discipline and trouble gets hold upon us and 
crushes out the perfume which is latent in our 
hearts. It seems to me a pathetic thing that God 
should so often be compelled to crush our lives in 
order to save our souls. How much more grateful 
and beautiful it would be if we would live worthy 
of the brotherhood of Jesus Christ and of the sweet 
gifts he has bestowed upon us, and show forth in 
health and strength and prosperity the full blos- 
soming of the Christian graces. 

There is a recent invention in gathering perfume 
that is very interesting. If you have given the 
matter attention, you are aware that heretofore the 
only method of extracting the perfume of flowers 
has been the ugly way of crushing them and 
cooking them in beef fat; but a man in San 
Diego, Cal., who has been experimenting with 
flowers and perfume for a good many years, has 
studied out a new method of collecting the sweet 
odors, by which he gets the fragrance without de- 
stroying the flower. The instrument which he has 
invented is carried into a greenhouse and placed 
among the flowers whose odors it is desired to col- 
lect. The vapor which rises from the flowers is 
filled with their fragrance, and as it meets the sur- 
face of the glass funnel of his new instrument, it 
is condensed into drops and trickles down into 
the receiver. It is thought that this will revolu- 



174 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



tionize the gathering of perfumes throughout the 
world. If we would do the will of God perfectly, 
yielding our hearts with fidelity and devotion to 
Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lord, receiv- 
ing our joys from him as reverently as we do our 
sorrows, seeking both in joy and sorrow so to bear 
ourselves that we shall bring honor to our divine 
Lord, I am sure he would be able to gather the 
sweet perfume our lives should yield without spoil- 
ing the outward beauty of the flower. 

The difficulty with so many of us is that our 
testimony for Christ is so irregular. At times we 
are good witnesses, and on other occasions poor 
ones. We glorify the Lord sometimes, and at 
other times we libel him. Such irregularity in 
our conduct can only come from a sad lack of con- 
tinuous devotion to the Lord in our hearts. If we 
are constantly true to Christ there will be no barren 
places in our lives, but his promise to the woman 
of Samaria at the well of Sychar will come true, 
and the water which he shall give us will not be 
subject to drought, but will be in us a well of liv- 
ing water, pure and abundant, springing up into 
everlasting life. 

Prof. Baldwin Spencer, a naturalist who has 
been recently making explorations in central Aus- 
tralia, informs us that in that land one often travels 
mile after mile over bare, stony plains, with 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



175 



scarcely a sign of plant or animal life. The sun 
beats down hotly on shining fields of brown and 
purple stones. That is in the drought time. But 
when the rainy season comes, everything is trans- 
formed. Clay pans and water holes will become 
noisy in a single night with the croaking of frogs ; 
crustaceans hatch out with wonderful rapidity from 
eggs which have lain on the dry ground for, it may 
be, many months ; small mollusks buried in clay 
are released, and every inhabitant of land and 
water revels in the joy of living. The ground 
within a day or two is green with the leaves of 
countless seedlings, which grow rapidly; birds 
appear as if by magic, and the once dry and silent 
country is now bright with flowers and foliage and 
animals, all decked out in their liveliest colors. 

Like that dry and burned-up desert land with 
its shimmering stones in the heat and drought is 
an individual Christian or a church that has been 
given over to formality and worldliness until every 
green hope has withered, until real reverence has 
been strangled in forms, until enthusiastic love and 
brotherliness have been smothered in selfishness 
and pride, and life — beautiful, joyous life — has 
died out in sound and coloring. But when such a 
soul or such a church is drawn back from indiffer- 
ence and begins like the prophet of old in the land 
of Ahab to pray for rain ; when in penitence and 



176 THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



faith the heart is turned toward Christ, longing for 
the coming of the Lord and for his presence, and 
crying aloud with the Psalmist: "As the hart 
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul 
after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for 
the living God : when shall I come and appear be- 
fore God? My tears have been my meat day and 
night, while they continually say unto me, Where is 
thy God?" — when that cry roll up from the deeps 
of the soul, the spiritual climate changes. The 
clouds gather in the sky, the rain of divine grace 
falls upon the dry and dusty field of the soul, fer- 
tility buds and blossoms on every side, the birds 
sing again, and life comes — sweet, precious, abun- 
dant life. 

Thank God ! something of that glorious experi- 
ence has come into this church. In many hearts, 
in many homes, and to a great part of the church 
itself, it has been like the coming of the rainy 
season in the time of drought. Day after day 
God has poured his grace upon us, and those who 
had been crying for sorrow have had the new ex- 
perience of crying for joy. The world outside has 
caught a glimpse of this new fertility, the sweet 
music of the melodies of our hearts has attracted 
their attention, and many have come to enjoy the 
showers of heavenly mercy and found their barren- 
ness transformed into a garden of the Lord, I 



THE LORD'S BROTHER 



177 



can not express to you the deep longing of my 
heart that the gracious influences of this divine 
awakening may reach every home and every heart 
of this church. Some of you as yet have not felt 
its power. Tou have heard about it with wonder- 
ing and almost unbelieving ears, because as yet 
your own soul has not felt the divine touch. Do 
not permit these meetings to go by without sharing 
in this holy inspiration. 

Jean Ingelow was once in the country visiting, 
and one evening the entire party was called out 
into the garden to listen to the sweet song of a 
nightingale. While the others were enraptured 
with the plaintive melody, Miss Ingelow suddenly 
exclaimed: "I do not hear anything at all!" 
Upon inquiry, they found that, being afraid of 
drafts, she had stuffed her ears with cotton be- 
fore coming out into the night air. Alas, I fear 
there are some as inconsistent as that in regard to 
listening for the voice of God. You have closed 
your ears with worldliness ; the jar and din of busi- 
ness or pleasure are so great, and so near to you, 
that your ears are deaf to the still small voice of 
the Spirit that seeks to speak to you of heavenly 
and divine things. Do not so rob yourself. Ee- 
member that upon you also rests the responsibility 
of living worthy of one who is called the brother or 

the sister of the Lord. 
12 



178 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



I do not doubt that I speak to some who in other 
places — it may be across the sea, in the old coun- 
try, or in some country town or distant city — have 
known the forgiving love of Christ and have re- 
joiced in brotherly fellowship with him, but mov- 
ing away from the old home, you have been caught 
in adverse currents, and have drifted, a sort of 
spiritual derelict, on the face of the waters. It is 
said that ships wrecked and abandoned at sea will 
sometimes drift thousands of miles, but if not en- 
tirely destroyed and sunk, all find their way at last 
into the Sargasso Sea, a portion of the North 
Atlantic Ocean. These modern cities are a kind 
of Sargasso Sea into which multitudes of church 
derelicts are carried, and many of them drift 
about, curiosity seekers, from one church to an- 
other, finding nowhere rest for their souls, until 
finally they are caught in some whirlpool and sink 
out of sight forever. Dr. Hallock tells of a little 
girl who had been rummaging in her mother's 
trunk. There she found a " church letter" which 
her mother had neglected to present to the church 
into whose neighborhood she had moved. The 
little explorer rushed into her mother's presence, 
shouting: " mamma, I've found your religion in 
your trunk!" I fear there are thousands in this 
city to whom that incident would be an appropriate 
message. Surely a trunk is a dark, mothy place 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



179 



to keep one's religion. Wherever you may be 
living you should bring out your religion and 
put it into the spiritual exchange of some church, 
and let it go on its shining, helpful, living way, 
bearing testimony for Christ. 

There is one thing we may be sure will never 
fail to bear rich fruit, and that is honest daily ser- 
vice for the Lord. The illness of Mrs. Ballington 
Booth called forth interest from all parts of the 
world. Among the many letters received by her 
husband was one from a man in the " condemned 
cell" at Sing Sing, New York. He said: "I do 
not belong to the Volunteer Prison League. But 
your wife's presence here has transformed this 
place in such a way that I feel good in spite of 
myself. When I heard she was going to die I 
wanted to pray, and now that the warden has told 
me she will get better, my heart is so full of joy 
that I can die in peace." What a glorious thing 
it is to live a life so true that Jesus is recom- 
mended by your service, and souls that are ready 
to give up in discouragement and despair take 
heart again as they see the beauty of the Christ 
in you ! 

Last Sunday I spoke to you in earnest appeal in 
behalf of the multitudes of young men and young 
women grouped all about us here, who are away 
from home, and need especially the Christian sym- 



180 THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



pathy and fellowship which this church can give 
them in winning them to Christ. I was greatly 
impressed afterward at what Father Lewis, one of 
the oldest and truest pillars in our church temple, 
said to me in comment. He told me that nearly 
fifty-seven years ago, when he first came to this 
place from the old country, he had gone up and 
down these streets so lonesome and homesick that 
as he walked he would sob and cry as tho his 
heart would break out of very hunger for home 
and friends. Some faithful soul led young Edward 
Lewis to Christ, and he has been a blessing to the 
church and the city ever since. But I do assure 
you that that gold-mine is not yet worked out. 
There are thousands of other homesick and lonely 
boys and girls in this city that can be won by our 
Christian love and earnest devotion. 

And I know I speak to many here this morning 
who are not Christians, who yet have a longing in 
your hearts to become in deed and in truth the 
brother or the sister of our Lord. Tho your sins 
pile up like mountains, over the mountains he 
comes with the good news of salvation. Tho 
your sins are blood-red like crimson or scarlet, 
the blood which flowed upon his cross can make 
them white as snow. Out of every evil associa- 
tion, out of the mud and mire of every wicked 
habit, out of the trap of every vicious and sinful 



THE LORD'S BROTHER. 



181 



way, lie will lift you up on to the solid rock, up into 
the sunlight of loving brotherhood with himself. 
Do not refuse him. It is a brother's hand that is 
offered. It is a brother's heart that beats in sym- 
pathy with yours. It is a brother's fellowship that 
will make all the years to come a happy pilgrimage 
to the skies. 



THE GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD 
IS NEGLECT. 



" How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?" 
— Heb. ii. 3 (Rev. Ver.). 

The greatest thief in the world is neglect. It 
robs more souls of heaven than anything else. 
The great majority of people in Christian lands 
who die unsaved, who go unprepared to the judg- 
ment to meet God, who are bound hand and foot 
by wicked habits until the last, are not lost because 
they did not believe God's Word. They are not 
lost because they are infidels. They do not fail of 
heaven because they were not convicted of their 
sin, not because they deliberately thought the 
matter out and came to a conclusion and said : " I 
will not be a Christian. I will never accept the 
Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, but I will live and 
die as a rejecter of him." There is not one man in 
one hundred thousand that makes such a deter- 
mination. But a great majority are unsaved be- 
cause of neglect. They are waiting for some other 
time to come, and they put it off for lesser things 
until it is too late. 

182 



GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 183 



I read you for our Scripture lesson two of those 
wonderfully illuminating stories of Jesus Christ 
which illustrate our theme better than any merely 
human words. 

In the first story there are ten girls who have 
been bidden to a wedding. They were not young 
ladies divided into two separate classes of wise and 
foolish, so that everybody knew that five of them 
were wise and five foolish. They were ten girls of 
the same social standing who moved in the same 
circle of acquaintance, who were accustomed to be 
invited to the same places, and who met together 
upon a plane of thorough equality. All of them, 
according to that Eastern custom, brought their 
lamps. There was a delay. The bridegroom 
tarried, and as the moments passed into hours 
they all fell asleep. It is not that five of them 
were awake and watchful while the other five were 
slumbering, but they all slept. 

At last, in the midnight, the cry rang out an- 
nouncing the coming of the bridegroom. At once 
they were aroused and full of interest and activity. 
With one accord each set about trimming her 
lamp. Then it was that five of them discovered 
that they had forgotten, neglected, to fill their 
lamps. Their oil was gone and their lamps had 
gone out. They tried to borrow from their more 
prudent associates, but they had none to spare. 



184 GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 

Ingersoll, the infidel, flippantly points to this as 
a case of selfishness, but it is not so. No Chris- 
tian man, however loving and good and brotherly, 
is able to loan the oil of salvation to his neighbor. 
Had it been otherwise, Ingersoll' s God-fearing 
parents would have loaned the oil of salvation to 
their reckless son. Not one of us has any salva- 
tion to spare. We may cheer by our sympathy, 
we may encourage by a brotherly hand, we may 
inspire our example, we may point with loving tes- 
timony to Christ ; but he only can furnish the oil 
of salvation. He only is great enough to save an 
immortal soul. 

The five girls who had neglected to provide oil 
for their lamps hastened back into the city to buy 
oil and returned with rapid steps and quick-beating 
hearts, but the bridegroom had come in their ab- 
sence and the door was closed. They cried aloud : 
"Open unto us! open unto us!" but the answer 
came: "I know you not." Their failure all turned 
on neglect. Perhaps they were busy, and had 
many cares and social engagements. Taking heed 
that a lamp was filled was such a little thing when 
so many present and noisy demands were made 
upon them. But on little threads like that hangs 
oftentimes an immortal destiny. Now there is set 
before you an open door, and nothing can shut it 
but your own neglect. Enter it while you may. 



GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 185 

The other story is one which Christ told at a 
dinner, and is certainly a very heart-searching 
after-dinner speech; but Christ always sought to 
save men rather than please them. The story, as 
Christ tells it, is of a great feast prepared, where 
many invitations were sent out; and when all is 
ready and the hour has come for the dinner to be 
served there are no guests to eat it. Servants are 
sent to inquire the reason of the delay, and each 
guest sends an excuse and refuses to come. There 
was only one thing they united in, and that was 
that " They all with one consent began to make 
excuse." I do not suppose they had met each 
other and talked it over, and decided what excuse 
they would make. There had been no understand- 
ing among them that they would all refuse ; per- 
haps each man that sent his excuse supposed all 
the rest would be there. 

In two cases — of the man who had bought a 
farm, and the one who had bought some oxen — 
their business engagements cause them to neglect 
the feast. The man who bought the land de- 
clared that he "must" go and see it; but, as Dr. 
Maclaren keenly points out, this was a " must" 
which the man made himself. The field would 
not run away tho he waited until to-morrow. 
The bargain was finished, for he had bought it. 
So there was no real necessity for his going, and 



186 GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 



the next day would have done quite as well as to- 
day; the "must" was entirely in his own mind. 
Is it not so with many of you who are saying 
that your business relations are such that you can 
not now give your heart to Christ? You say 
glibly : " I am so pressed by necessary obligations 
and engagements that I really have no time to 
think about religion and to attend to the question 
of the salvation of my soul." But you are only 
deceiving yourself with such an answer. It is thus 
that the devil is cheating you. You would say at 
once that a man was foolish who would permit a 
pressing engagement connected with the invest- 
ment of a thousand dollars to cause him to neglect 
a certain opportunity to make ten thousand dollars. 
How much more foolish is your course when you 
excuse yourself from accepting Christ's offer of sal- 
vation, which will begin here and now in forgive- 
ness and peace, and continue in enlarged dividends 
of joy in a glorious immortal life. 

One of the other guests in our Scripture story 
has another excuse of a very powerful kind. " I 
have married a wife," he said, "and therefore I 
can not come." I do not doubt there are many 
here who are held away from Christ because of the 
strong cords of the affections. Many a wife is held 
back because the husband, whom she tenderly loves, 
is not a Christian, and she fears his frown or the 



GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 187 

loss of his sympathy. I have known scores and 
hundreds of wives who longed to be Christians and 
yet neglected it because they feared to risk the sar- 
casm or objections of their husbands. Sometimes 
it is the husband, as in this case, who is held back 
by the unbelieving wife. Sometimes children are 
held back by their parents, and that seems an awful 
thing. I can not see how any father or mother, 
knowing the world and its temptations to wicked- 
ness, can go on setting an example before their 
children which leads them away from God and 
from heaven. I can not see how they can use the 
very cords of love for father and mother, which 
God has put into their young hearts, as cords to 
lead them away from Christ and salvation. 

Now, you will notice that all these excuses are 
concerning things which are right in themselves. 
It is certainly right that a man having bought a 
farm should go and look after it, and carefully in- 
quire the best way to till it and make it profitable. 
It is proper that a man who has bought five yoke 
of oxen should, as soon as convenient, yoke them 
up and test them. It is certainly commendable 
that husband or wife should give full measure of 
sympathy and love and presence to the home 
circle. But the fatal blunder and sin is that any 
of these things should ever be used as an excuse 
for neglecting the salvation of the soul. There is 



188 GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 



nothing in the Christian life which interferes with 
any other duties. In becoming a Christian a man 
does not need to sacrifice anything that he is not 
better without. 

Some of you are in great danger of neglecting 
your return to God so long that you will lose out 
of your heart all those divine and tender memories 
of Christian teaching in your childhood which 
have so far restrained you many times from falling 
still deeper into sin. If a man neglects to use his 
best powers, he loses the ability to use them 
through disuse. A naturalist has just explored an 
island in the South Pacific, only recently discov- 
ered, and named Christmas Island. It was not 
thought to be inhabited by man or beast. The 
naturalist was, however, astounded to run across a 
huge bamboo house in the center of the island, and 
to see about it evidences of cultivation. As he ap- 
peared in the open glade an aged white man left a 
stockade close to the house, and, followed by his 
native wife and children, with a number of black 
servants bringing up the rear, came toward him. 
This modern Eobinson Crusoe indicated by signs 
that he had forgotten his native tongue, but was 
vicious and warlike in his purpose, and by aid of 
his slaves drove the naturalist from the island. 
The white man gave every evidence of having 
relapsed completely into the barbarism of the 



GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 189 

natives. Alas, it is possible to wander away so far 
in sin, and give oneself up so completely to the 
language of the world, that the language of heaven 
which you learned at a prayerful mother's knee 
may be lost from your tongue forever ! 

Do not neglect the confession which you owe 
Christ until it is your dying confession wrung from 
your lips by pain and anguish. A young man, it 
is said, was run over by the cars last summer. On 
being taken to a hospital he was told that both legs 
must be amputated. When he asked what was 
likely to be the result, the surgeons were com- 
pelled to reply that the chances were largely 
against him, and that if he had anything he wished 
to say, he would better speak it at once. He was 
lying on the operating-table, and it was just be- 
fore he was to be put under the influence of chloro- 
form. It was a scene full of pathos. There were 
a number of surgeons standing around him, and 
several of them were not only not Christians, but 
inclined to be antichristian. The young man's 
face was contracted with pain, but he nerved him- 
self for the declaration and said in a deep, manly 
voice : " My mother has long begged me to confess 
Christ openly ; I have never done so. I regret be- 
yond all words to express that I have neglected it 
so long, and I wish here and now to declare myself 
a soldier of the Cross, and to express my faith in 



190 GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 



Christ and what lie has wrought for us, lifting up 
my heart to him that he may prepare me for what- 
ever comes." Among all those men standing about 
him, accustomed to scenes of pain and sorrow, 
there was not one whose eyes did not fill with tears 
at the young man's loyalty to the two greatest 
factors in a human life— God and mother. 

An open renunciation of your sin, whatever it is, 
and a confession of Christ as open and brave, will 
certainly bring you peace and joy. Some of you 
have known the joy of the Lord, and have been led 
away by sin. You must break with that sin if you 
would come to Christ. 

A distinguished minister from London, who was 
in this country last year, said that in one of his 
meetings there came to him a young lady who said 
all joy had gone out of her life four years before. 

"Praise God!" he said. 

"What about?" said she. 

"That you know when it went; because, if you 
know when it went, you know how it went." 

She said: "I do not think I do." 

"Yes, you do; you are very definite about the 
time ; now go back four years and tell me what 
happened." 

She hung her head for a while, and the minis- 
ter knew that something had happened. "What 
was it?" 



GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 191 

She replied : " I quarreled with my oldest friend. 
We were both Christians and I wanted to tell her 
that I was wrong ; but I did not, and she has gone 
away from the country." 

"Well/' the minister said, "you know all about 
it." 

"What am I to do?" she asked. 
" Write to her and tell her that you were wrong; 
that is what the Master wanted you to do then." 
"I can not do that." 

"You will never get back to the joy until you 
do." 

Many days passed by, and there was no differ- 
ence in her experience. All was darkness and 
despair; but one night she came to the meeting 
with her face all aglow with joy. 

The first thing the minister said to her was: 
"You have sent that letter?" 

"Yes," said she, and every line in her face con- 
vinced him that the gladness of salvation had re- 
turned. " I wrote it last night. I have been fight- 
ing God all these years, aod this last week I have 
been in hell about it, and at last I said: e O God, 
I can not bear this any longer, I will give in. ' I 
wrote that letter, and sealed it, and carried it at 
midnight and dropped it into the letter-box, and as 
that letter went into the box heaven came back into 
my heart." 



192 GREATEST THIEF IN THE WORLD. 

Some of you are clinging to some sin which 
stands between you and the heaven of joy which 
God longs to bring to your heart. You can never 
have salvation unless you give it up. Some of 
you are prejudiced against coming out openly 
to the altar and bowing down humbly before the 
mercy-seat ; but you must be willing to do anything 
that is right to show forth the purpose of your 
heart to take Christ as your Savior. Do not let a 
little thing like that defraud you of heaven. You 
have been neglecting Christ so long, do you not 
owe it to him to make up for that neglect as much 
as you can by making your return to him as open 
and brave as possible? 



A FKIEND WHO NEVEK FAILS. 



"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and 
forever." — Heb. xiii. 8 (Rev. Ver.). 

Cheistians who are engaged in earnest prayer 

and service for the salvation of their friends and 

neighbors ought to find great comfort in this text. 

Christ never failed to hear the prayer of his dis- 

, ciples. He was kind to them in their weakness, 

and in his loving conversations with them before 

he went away he assured them that anything they 

should ask of the Father in his name would be 

granted. He is the same loving Savior now. 

With all the changes that have come over the 

world since that day, he is not changed in the 

least. Eternal youth sits upon the shepherd love 

of Jesus Christ. You may be sure that your 

prayers do not fall upon ears that have grown 

heavy with age. We need to have this simple, 

childlike faith in Christ, not only for the comfort 

of our own hearts, but that we may thus claim the 

divine promise for others. 

A man had been bringing his brother to church 

for some time, hoping that he would be converted, 
13 193 



194 A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 



and one evening, to the great joy of his heart, his 
brother made an open confession of Christ and 
was most happily saved. After the service was 
over his pastor said to him, " I suppose you were 
surprised to see him converted." 

" I should have been very much surprised if he 
had not been," was the answer. 

"But why, my dear brother?" said the min- 
ister. 

"Because," said he, "I asked the Lord to con- 
vert him, and I kept on praying that he might be 
converted ; and I should have been very much sur- 
prised if he had not been." 

That is what I mean by childlike faith that rests 
upon the promises of God and expects that prayer 
will be answered. 

We may be sure that the Christ who when he 
was here on earth brought about great results by 
means of the little things that his friends offered 
him, is still the same loving and powerful friend, 
who will multiply every honest service we do for 
him. He who did not discard or treat with con- 
tempt the little lad's five loaves and two fishes, 
but gave his blessing to them and multiplied them 
to feed the multitude, will not scorn your service, 
tho it may seem to you as only a cup of cold 
water. If your heart's love go with your effort, 
and it is your best, Christ will take it and multi- 



A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 195 

ply it, and cause it to do immeasurable good in 
the salvation of souls. 

A young telegraph-boy had been for a long time 
convicted of sin. He was constantly burdened 
with the consciousness that he had done wrong, 
and that in some way he needed divine help, but 
he was befogged and in the dark. He was almost 
discouraged; religion seemed to him something 
vague and unreal, and he was about to give up in 
despair of there being for him such a thing as 
Christian joy. But as he sat at his telegraph in- 
strument one day, a man came in and, asking for 
a blank, wrote out a despatch and handed it to 
him. As he took the telegram in his hand to 
transmit it, it was with great surprise that he 
spelled out these words: "Behold the Lamb of 
God, which taketh away the sin of the world." A 
Christian man who was out for a holiday had re- 
ceived that morning a letter from a friend who was 
in great trouble of soul, and tho he had an- 
swered the letter, it occurred to him that a tele- 
gram would reach him quicker, and might give 
him the help he needed. His loving thought 
saved two souls — not only the man at the end of 
the line, but the young telegrapher who trans- 
mitted it. It was God's message to him. He 
saw that he had been casting about after all sorts 
of things when the one thing in the world that he 



\ 



196 A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 

needed was to look to Christ, and as his fingers 
touched the keys to send the message over the 
wire, the Holy Spirit applied the words to his own 
heart, and he beheld the Lamb of God bearing not 
only the sins of the world, but his own sins. 

Mr. Spurgeon tells how Dr. Valpy wrote four 
simple lines as his confession of faith : 

" In peace let me resign my breath, 
And thy salvation see ; 
My sins deserve eternal death, 
But Jesus died for me. " 

Valpy soon died, but he had given the lines to 
Dr. Marsh, the rector at Beckenham, who put 
them over his study mantel-shelf. The Earl of 
Eoden came in and read them. "Will you give 
me a copy of those lines ?" inquired the good Earl. 
"I shall be glad to," said Dr. Marsh, and he 
copied them. Lord Eoden took them home, and 
put them over his mantel-shelf. General Taylor, 
a Waterloo hero, came into the room, and noticed 
them. He read them over and over again, while 
staying with Earl Eoden, till his Lordship re- 
marked, " I say, friend Taylor, I should think you 
might know those lines by heart." He answered, 
with deep emotion: "I do know them by heart; 
indeed, my very heart has grasped their meaning." 
The great soldier was brought to Christ by that 
humble rime. General Taylor in turn copied 



A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 197 



the lines, and handed them to an officer in the 
army who was going out to the Crimean war. 
Afterward he came home to die. Dr. Marsh 
went to see him, and the dying soldier said: 
" Good sir, do you know this verse which General 
Taylor gave to me? It brought me to my Savior, 
and I die in peace." To Dr. Marsh's surprise he 
repeated the lines : 

" In peace let me resign my breath, 
And thy salvation see ; 
My sins deserve eternal death, 
But Jesus died for me." 

Think how God blessed the work of that good 
man, and sent the four lines which he had written 
in grateful love from one heart to another, carrying 
salvation with them everywhere. It is the same 
Jesus who is our Savior and our Friend, and he 
loves us just as much as he did Dr. Valpy, or any 
of the early disciples, and with the tenderest love 
he receives our service and will bless it to the 
salvation of souls. 

This is also a blessed Scripture for you who are 
not Christians. He is the very same Jesus that 
he was when on earth, and we know that then he 
was always willing to save. " Come unto me, all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden," was the cry of 
Jesus when he was here on earth, going about 



198 A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 

doing good, and lie is still calling the weary and 
tlie heavy laden to come to him that they may find 
rest unto their souls. When Christ was here he 
was the most pitiful man that ever lived toward 
those whose sins had brought them into the deep- 
est sorrow, and had left them friendless and dis- 
couraged. No influence of a mob could frighten 
him into cursing the poor woman who had been 
taken in adultery ; neither would he, in order to 
court the favor of the rich and powerful, turn a 
cold look or a forbidding gesture to the publicans 
and sinners who gathered to hear him, He is the 
same Jesus to-day, his heart is as full of pity and 
sympathy for sinners as it was then, and he is still 
saying to broken, downcast hearts, " Neither do I 
condemn thee: go, and sin no more." He is just 
as ready to say to you now, as he ever was to 
anybody, "Thy sins, which are many, are for- 
given thee." 

When Christ was here, he was one of the easiest 
of men to get acquainted with. Nobody needed 
to have a titled friend or a rich neighbor to intro- 
duce him to Jesus. The letter of introduction 
that was most sure to get his immediate and un- 
conditional love and friendship was to have blind 
eyes, or deaf ears, or the scales of leprosy that 
made every one else afraid ; or to be possessed with 
devils so that you were shunned by your neigh- 



A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 199 



bors. If you were in need of a friend, and your 
heart was hungry for somebody to love you and 
say cheering words to you, heal you of your sick- 
ness, or set you free from a cruel bondage, you 
were sure of immediate attention and kindly treat- 
ment at the hands of Jesus Christ. Anybody 
could approach him ; even the poor leper that had 
to cry " unclean, unclean" to everybody else, could 
draw near to Christ without a frown. Thank God ! 
he is still the same approachable, loving Savior; 
he has not become conservative or aristocratic or 
reserved and distant in his habits since he ascended 
on high. Ah! no, his very business in heaven 
keeps him in touch with us, for he is at the right 
hand of God making intercessions for us. The 
Christ who calmed the stormy waves at a word ; 
who touched the leper and said: "I will; be thou 
clean"; he who called to Lazarus, "Come forth!" 
and the dead man stood living again, is the very 
same Jesus still, ready to heal and quicken into 
life. He has lost none of his sympathy or his 
power. " He is able also to save them to the utter- 
most that come unto God by him, seeing he ever 
liveth to make intercession for them." 

When Christ was here in his earthly ministry, 
one of the most astonishing things about him was 
the way he trusted people. He had that divine 
insight into the human heart that could see the 



200 A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 

goodness hidden under all the sin, and by his con- 
fidence he saved the souls of those whom others 
thought to be untrustworthy. It is often a man's 
salvation to have somebody trust him. There is 
an interesting incident told of the Duke of York, 
the heir to the English crown. While yet Prince 
George, he was serving on the "West Indian 
squadron, and was put in command of the steam- 
ship Thrush. The following day a sailor in irons 
was brought on board the vessel to be transported 
to another part of the station. The prisoner was 
but a lad of the same age as the young commander, 
and there was something in his face and bearing, 
reckless tho he was, that showed that he was 
not wholly bad. Prince George watched him 
keenly during the short voyage, and after he had 
delivered him up for punishment, made a note of 
the time when his imprisonment would be over. 
When the day came he applied to the admiral to 
have the man transferred to the Thrush. The ad- 
miral remonstrated, urging that it was not the 
prisoner's first offense, that he had been drunken 
and disorderly for two years. " Let me try what I 
can do," said the prince. The admiral reluctantly 
consented, and when the prisoner came on board 
the Thrush he was brought before the young cap- 
tain. When they were alone together, the boy 
whom fortune had made a prince said to the boy 



A FRIEND WHO NEVER FAILS. 201 



whose surroundings had helped to make him an 
outcast : " You have been transferred to my ship. 
I believe there is some good in you, and I wish to 
give you a chance for your life. You are given a 
clean sheet for your record. The first-class men 
go ashore to-day on special leave. Go with them. 
You have had no leave for a year. I exact no 
promise of good behavior from you, and trust 
wholly to your honor. I hope you will not disap- 
point me. Here is a sovereign. You know what 
you ought and ought not to do as well as I know, 
and if you offend again you must go back to the 
class from which I now remove you. Your future 
is in your own hands." The man proved worthy 
of the trust. He has been so honest and efficient 
a sailor that he has now been promoted to be an 
officer. Should Prince George, now Duke, ever be- 
come king, he will have no more loyal, faithful sub- 
ject than the man whom he saved from moral ruin. 

But that is only a faint type of the way Jesus 
Christ, our Savior, is ready to treat you. He 
will not only forgive you your past sins and give 
you a clean record, but he will give you a clean 
heart, and will himself dwell in your heart, a 
sacred guest, strengthening there every good im- 
pulse, every noble ambition, and giving you his own 
strong arm to lean upon, so that day by day you 
shall have his friendship to cheer and inspire you. 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 



"For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper 
than any two-edged sword." — Heb. iv. 12 (Rev. Ver.). 

The illustrations that are used to describe the 
Word of God throughout the Bible suggest its 
energy and power. It is compared in the Psalms 
to a lamp, a light to guide the feet. Light is 
positive; darkness is negative. Light dispels 
darkness. The rays of the sun flash from world 
to world across millions of miles of space in time 
measured by seconds, and that is only a faint 
type of the flashing of spiritual light. Again, the 
Word of God is compared to a hammer to break 
the rock in pieces, so that no opposition can with- 
stand it. In Jeremiah it is said, "Is not my 
word like as a fire? saith the Lord." Nothing is 
more active, more vital with life, than fire. It is 
at once heat and light. It melts and consumes. 
It either warms into life, or it annihilates. It is 
also compared to a seed, an incorruptible seed 
which supplies the moral harvests of the world. 
A seed is full of life ; one can easily imagine a 

giant oak-tree, whose shadows fall for a hundred 

202 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 203 

feet, bound up in an acorn. One looks at the heap 
of wheat on the granary floor and beholds a wide- 
reaching field of waving grain shimmering in the 
sun. A seed is the most powerful thing in nature. 
No giant that ever lived could lift such loads as a 
seed that a sparrow could swallow. Wooed by the 
sunshine and the shower, nerved by the omnipo- 
tent life which God has given it, it can tear a stone 
wall to pieces, lift a weight of many tons, and 
push anything aside which stands between it and 
the light. 

We are therefore not surprised to find the Word 
of God compared in this text to a sword — and not 
only to a sword, but one sharper than " any two- 
edged sword." There have been many sharp 
two-&dged swords in the earth, subjected, like the 
far-famed Damascus blades, to the most ingeni- 
ous temperings of the swordmaker's art; but Paul 
declares that the Word of God is sharper than any 
of them. Shakespeare must have had this text in 
his mind where he speaks of "the mind's eye" 
which flashes through all the sensations and actions 
of the soul like lightning, and lays bare to a man's 
consciousness all that God has detected within 
him. There is life in the Word of God. It is 
living and active to awaken the slumberer, to cut 
deep beneath the surface and make man know 
himself. 



204 THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 

Dr. Thomas Armitage says that certain historic 
things need corroborating evidence outside of 
themselves, but some things are self-evident. The 
sun tells of its own light, and you can not well 
prove it; your pulse tells of your own life, and 
you can not demonstrate it by reasoning. So the 
sharp, keen sword of the Word of God shows a 
man's inner heart to himself. Jesus Christ talked 
only for a little while with the woman at the well 
of Samaria, but his conversation Served to open 
every dark corner of her heart and let the light in 
upon every sin; and wicked deeds that she had 
forgotten came out from their moldy resting- 
places where they had been slumbering for years 
and shook themselves into horrid life again. So 
deeply and keenly did the word from Christ cleave 
into the soul of that woman that it opened to her 
her whole history at one gash, and when she went 
into the town to tell her acquaintances about it she 
declared he must indeed be the Messiah, for, says 
she, "He told me all things that ever I did." 

God's Word has not lost its power to cut sharp 
between the lower and the higher life, or to discern 
the secret things of the heart. It is the heart that 
must be opened to the light if we are to be 
saved, for it is the heart that has gone astray. It 
is in the heart that evil imaginations are born, and 
where unholy thoughts are hatched out into wicked 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 205 



plans and purposes. The wise man of old did well 
to urge the guarding of the heart with all diligence, 
declaring that out of it are the issues of life. 
Christ says that out of the heart proceed evil 
thoughts, which manifest themselves in every 
wicked way. It is the infinite love of God that 
leads him to use the sharp sword of his Word in 
opening up to our gaze the wickedness of our 
hearts. It has been well said that perhaps no 
sight on earth is so painful as that of a skilful 
surgeon whose mind is keyed to the highest ten- 
sion, till his nerve is as steady as the magnetic 
needle, and his judgment as cool as the north star 
to which it points, and in this frame of mind is 
operating upon a suffering patient. It appears to 
an unthinking mind like the height of cold-blooded 
heartlessness for him to be able to grasp the knife 
so firmly and, without a twinge or wince, almost 
at one stroke, sever the joint at the socket, or lay 
bare the bone and pierce to the marrow. Yet per- 
haps there is no more benevolent deed performed 
on earth than that of the skilful surgeon who, 
when it is necessary, does not hesitate to cut off 
the right hand, or pluck out the right eye, or to 
remove the deadly tumor. And the more thor- 
oughly self-possessed, accurate, and cool the act on 
his part, the better for the sufferer, the lighter his 
torture, and the surer his cure. When gangrene 



206 THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 

threatens a wound, it is better that a part of the 
body should be promptly removed than that the 
whole body should perish. The skilful surgeon 
does not give pain for his own pleasure, but for the 
profit and salvation of his patient. Neither does 
God pierce our hearts with the sharp two-edged 
sword of his Word until strong men cry out in 
agony because of their sin, but that we may be 
aroused to our peril, that our souls may be saved. 
See Peter at Pentecost tracing the coming of Jesus 
Christ through the prophecies, until he reaches 
the birth of Jesus, then following him on through 
his ministry, showing that all the prophecies con- 
cerning the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus, and 
that he indeed was the Savior for whom they had 
been looking. Then with flashing eyes he turns 
upon them, and the Holy Spirit gives power to the 
Word as he charges it straight home to the men 
standing before him, and declares that they them- 
selves had taken Christ with cruel hands and 
murdered him on the cross, and that God had 
raised him from the dead. In Peter's hand the 
sharp sword of God's Word pierced these men to 
their hearts, and instead of being angry with the 
messenger, or seeking to harm him for his faith- 
fulness, the sword of God so showed them their 
own wickedness that they cried aloud : " Men and 
brethren, what shall we do?" But God had not 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 207 

been piercing their hearts with a sword simply to 
torment them. He did it to show them the deadly 
gangrene of sin in their hearts, so that they might 
be healed and saved, and that very day three thou- 
sand of those haters of Jesus Christ were happily 
converted and added to the infant church. 

God's Word has not lost its power. We have 
seen men and women pierced to the heart by the 
simple Word of God, and beheld them turning to 
Christ and finding in him the joy of salvation. 
God's Word is cutting like a sword in some of 
your consciences now. Some of you were here 
last evening, when so many were convicted, and 
the two-edged sword of the Spirit thrust through 
all the armor of your self-complacency, and cut 
deep down into your heart, and made you confess 
to your inner self that you were a poor wretched 
sinner. But startled as you were, and condemned 
as you felt, you tried to hush your conscience, and 
thrust your sins back into the darkness. All 
night, and all day long, you have been trying to 
patch up your armor so that you might parry or 
turn aside the sharp thrusts of God's Word. But 
how unwise it is thus to attempt to blind yourself 
to your own condition. Would any wise man de- 
sire to be in ignorance of the deadly cancer that 
every day was getting a stronger hold on the vital 
forces of his life? Would he not rather welcome 



208 THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 

the honesty and skill of the physician that would 
show him his true condition and give him a chance 
to be healed? That is the voice of a wise man that 
invites the sword of God's Word to cut to the very 
quick, that he may escape from the terrible danger 
of eternal despair. So if you are wise, instead of 
trying to silence your conscience, instead of shut- 
ting your ears to God's Word which reveals to you 
the blackness of the sin which is poisoning your 
life and separating between you and the peace of 
God, you will cry out to God in the language of 
David : " Search me, O God ! and know my heart ; 
try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be 
any wicked way in me." 

Nothing is ever settled in this world until it 
is settled right. History is full of illustrations. 
Men tried to patch up compromises to keep peace 
in our great republic and leave human slavery in 
it, and the best brains of the country were given 
over to that work for a whole generation; but the 
two-edged sword of God's Word kept ever laying 
bare the cancer spot of wickedness, and at last it 
took the surgeon's knife and cost a half million of 
lives and a billion of gold, with indescribable 
sorrow and suffering, but it saved the life of the 
nation and gave us peace. 

We have on hand another question like that 
now. For many years the brightest brains of the 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 209 

country have been devising schemes of compro- 
mise to patch up peace with the liquor traffic, and 
in some way partially heal the hurt that the peo- 
ple get from that awful curse ; but it goes on kill- 
ing a hundred thousand men a year, of whom God 
has said, "No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom 
of heaven!" And it fills the land with its poverty, 
its insanity, its lust, and its broken homes and 
broken hearts. Some day the surgeon's knife will 
cut it out at a fearful cost. God grant it may be 
in time to save the life of the republic ! 

But what is true of nations, is true of men and 
women, is true of you. Nothing is ever settled 
with you until it is settled right. Tou may go on 
covering up your sins, but you will not prosper. 
You may go on patching up miserable compro- 
mises with your conscience, but ever and anon 
God's Word will lay it bare, and show you the 
iniquity of your conduct, the certainty of your 
condemnation. 

But, thank God ! the Great Physician is here to 
save. Not only is God's Word in the world liv- 
ing and active to probe your sins, but Jesus ever 
lives to make intercession for sinners, and he is 
here to save you now. I come to call aloud in 
your ears the good news of his presence and his 
willingness to save. If you have read John 

Lothrop Motley's "Bise of the Dutch Bepublic," 
14 



210 THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 

you will probably remember how lie describes an 
incident in the imprisonment of Montigny. For a 
long time he had been shut up in the castle at 
Segovia. He was in despair and waited hope- 
lessly for death. But one day there passed 
through the streets of the little town a band of 
Flemish pilgrims chanting, as was the custom in 
those times, a low, monotonous song. Theirs was 
a strange tongue, and they were not understood by 
those about them. But the prisoner, as he listened, 
found they were singing the language of his own 
country, and singing for him. And so their real 
message, all unsuspected by the passing crowds, 
they sang to him, — of hope, and a way of escape. 
Some of you, it may be, are in discouragement 
and despair as the Word of God shows you the 
sinfulness of your own heart. You feel as if you 
were imprisoned by wicked habits, and as tho 
the key were held by your enemy. If such is your 
case, I come to you as a messenger of God's love 
to stand beneath your prison window and sing the 
song of redeeming mercy. Whoever else passes 
on without heeding it, you who know your sin 
and your bondage ought to listen ; for I sing you 
a song of liberty, of sunny skies, of peace, and 
God. I sing you the song of him who has de- 
clared : " Him that cometh to me I will in no wise 
cast out," and who is able to save "unto the utter- 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 211 



most." For this sword of God is a two-edged 
sword — the edge that cuts sharp and keen into 
your consciences, revealing your sins, is not 
keener than the edge of love that seeks to save you. 

The warden of an Eastern state prison tells this 
wonderful story of the power of love: He was 
passing out of the prison yard one bitterly cold 
Christmas morning. Just outside the gate, and 
crouching close to the high stone wall, he saw a 
thinly clad little girl of about twelve years, her 
face and hands blue with cold. She put out one 
of her thin hands to detain him as he passed. 

"If you please, sir," she said, and stopped, 
fingering nervously at the fringe of her old shawl, 
and timidly glancing down. 

"What is it?" he asked. 

"If you please, sir, I'd like to know if I can go 
inside and see my — my father. He's in there, 
and I've brung him something for Christmas. It 
ain't much, and I didn't spose you'd mind any if 
he had it. His name is John ." 

He recognized the name as that of a life convict 
— a man notoriously bad. He went back into the 
prison grounds, the child following him eagerly. 
Going to his office, the warden sent for the convict. 
He came, sullen and dejected; in his face was the 
look of utter hopelessness which the faces of the 
life prisoners so often wear. The child sprang 



212 THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 

forward to meet him, the hot tears streaming over 
her white face. He stepped back, sullen and 
seemingly angry. No word of welcome came from 
his lips for the ragged, trembling little creature 
who stood crying before him, with something 
clasped in her hands. 

"I — I — came to say, 'Merry Christmas/ father," 
she faltered. "I — I — thought maybe you'd be 
glad to see me. Ain't you any glad, father?" 

" Christmas !" What would that man not have 
given for freedom of body and soul! His head 
drooped. The hard look was going out of his 
face, his eyes were moistening. 

His little girl went on, trembling, and tearfully : 
"I — I — brung you something, father. It was all 
I could think of, and all I could get. I live at the 
poor-house now." 

Her trembling fingers began unwrapping the bit 
of soft white paper in her hand, and she held out 
a short, shining curl of yellow hair, carefully tied 
with a bit of old ribbon. " I wouldn't give this to 
anybody on earth but you, father. You used to 
truly, really love little Johnny. Mother said you 
did — and so " 

The man fell on his knees with both hands 
clasped over his face. "I did love him/' he said, 
hoarsely. " I love him still ; bad as I am, I love 
him still." 



THE SWORD THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 213 

"I know it," said the child, going closer, "and 
I knowed you'd like this, now that Johnny's dead." 

"Dead! dead!" wailed the broken-hearted man, 
rocking to and fro still on his knees with his hands 
over his face. " My little boy ?" 

"Yes," said the child, "he died in the poor- 
house only last week, and there's no one left but 
me now. But I ain't going to forget you, father. 
I'm going to stick right by you, 'spite of what folks 
say, and some day maybe I can get you out of 
here. I'm going to try. I don't never forget that 
you are my father, and so " 

But sin and hate and anger and sullenness were 
no match for a love like that, and the man threw 
out his arms and gathered the little one to his 
breast and kissed her again and again as tho 
his lips were hungry for love. All the sullenness 
of his heart gave way, and with it seemed to go 
the hopelessness and the awful bitterness, and the 
two, clasped in each other's arms, wept and prayed 
together. When they separated an hour later 
there were tears on both faces, but love smiled 
back through the tears from the face of the wicked 
man as surely as from the face of the little girl. 

If the love of a little child could do that, what 
shall not the all-encompassing love of Jesus Christ 
perform? He not only came down from heaven to 
suffer shame and poverty and ignominy and death 



214 THE SWOED THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS. 

for you, but through all the years of your wander- 
ing has watched over you with patient love, even 
when you have slighted him and grieved his tender 
heart and rejected his offers of mercy. Still he 
comes back to you again and again, and says with 
yearning love : " I haven't forgotten you, no matter 
who else has forgotten you, nor how your sin has 
disgraced you. I am still seeking to save you." 

Will you not cry out in the language of the old 
hymn? — 

" Just as I am — thy love unknown 
Hath broken every barrier down ; 
Now, to be thine, yea, thine alone, 
O Lamb of God, I come ! I come \ n 



THROWING THE SOUL'S PURSUERS 
OFF THE SCENT. 



"The sin which doth so easily beset us." — Heb. xii. 1 
(Rev. Ver.). 

I never think of this Scripture but there comes 
back to my memory an experience of the War of 
the Rebellion which a man once related to me. 
He was a prisoner in a Southern prison, and man- 
aged, with some others, to escape, and after al- 
most intolerable hardship they reached the North 
and their homes. They were pursued by blood- 
hounds, and he said that no other trouble or threat 
of trouble that had come to him in the course of 
an eventful life ever made such a horrid sensation 
in his breast as the baying of those bloodhounds. 
At last they were chased so hotly that they saw 
they must soon be overtaken and probably fear- 
fully mangled by the cruel beasts unless they could 
in some way throw their pursuers off the scent. 
Suddenly they came on a lagoon, or dead slough, 
in the edge of a swamp. The water was filthy, but 
into it they went, wading where they could, some- 
times being compelled to swim, but not daring to 

215 



216 THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 



leave the stagnant stream, where sometimes deadly 
moccasin snakes writhed near them. They pushed 
on, keeping as closely under cover as possible, and 
remained in this water for hours, until they had 
completely thrown off the bloodhounds that had 
been following them. 

It seems to me a man's besetting sin is like that. 
There never was a bloodhound so vicious or cruel 
as a besetting sin that has seized hold of the 
natural weakness of a man's soul and pursues him 
like a Nemesis when he endeavors to throw off the 
bondage of evil and enter upon a pure and good 
life. Across all the fair promise of the man's new 
hope and purpose will come the deep baying of 
the bloodhounds of some old appetite that has ter- 
rorized him because it has so often thwarted his 
desire to live worthy of his manhood. 

Years ago I had a friend with as manj r good 
qualities as almost any man I have ever known- 
honest, genuine, true-hearted, in every way a 
man to admire and respect, a man with a wide 
circle of influential friends and comrades, and 
who, most of the time, could have been pointed 
out by every fond mother as a model of the cour- 
teous, refined, honorable gentleman. But he had 
his besetting sin, and tho sometimes he fought 
it off for six months at a time, after about so long 
the btood-curdling notes of his bloodhound would 



THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 217 



ring in his ears. His sin took the form of appetite 
for strong drink. His pride would not let him go 
to the saloon, but when he had come to the end of 
his strength he would take the liquor home with 
him, and there, day after day and night after night, 
he would fill himself with the accursed poison. 
After two or three weeks he would reach the point 
where a physician must come in to save his life, 
and he would slowly beat his way back again to 
manly strength. No one who does not know what 
struggles such men make can for a moment con- 
ceive of the shame and sorrow, the remorse and 
the despair, which he suffered in those days when 
he trembled back into himself. He was not a 
Christian, of course. But in every struggle the 
man could possibly make, he wrestled for victory 
as I have never seen any other man ; yet that deadly 
sin was ever on his track. Finally, I was able, by 
the grace of God, to persuade him to take Jesus 
Christ at his word, as simply as would a little 
child, and to trust him who has declared his will- 
ingness and power to set us free. From that day 
he has had liberty. The blood of Jesus Christ so 
washed away the sin of his heart that even that 
devil's bloodhound of appetite was thrown off the 
scent, and in the years that have passed since 
then he has grown increasingly stronger. To- 
day he is a joyous and useful Christian, whose 



218 THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 



strong arm, generous hand, and courageous heart 
are among the chief pillars of support of every 
good movement in his church and community. 

I do not know what your besetting sin is, but as 
I have been speaking some of you have been keenly 
conscious of the sin that pursues you with such 
fiendish malignity. You, too, have tried in your 
own strength to escape from its pursuit. You 
have forsworn it again and again, and there have 
been times when you had hope. It may be you 
have been so taken up with other things that for a 
space you have escaped its deadly threat; but at 
an hour when you thought yourself safest, your 
besetting sin has thrust its villainous head out from 
under the forest of life and chilled your blood with 
its horrid cry of pursuit. You can not overcome 
it in your own strength. The reason is that deep 
down in your heart there is the citadel of sin and 
rebellion against God. Every day that you refuse 
to give Christ the open affection and love of your 
heart, the frank and avowed testimony of your 
daily service, you are sinning against him who is 
your rightful Master and Lord. 

This sin is weakening your will. It is paraly- 
zing your power of decision, and rendering you 
helpless in your attempt to escape from " the sin 
which doth so easily beset." Some of you with 
gray hairs coming on your head are not able yet 



THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 



219 



to decide. The fact is, that sin has undermined 
your power of will. You have seen a man with 
shaking palsy — his brain gives the order to stretch 
forth his hand and take a glass of water from the 
table, but he no longer has physical ability to 
carry out the command of the brain, or, rather, the 
brain has lost its perfect control of nerve and 
muscle, and the hand goes trembling and shaking 
on its mission, as if undecided. My heart has 
been saddened beyond description to see some 
who are past middle life and who for many years 
have known the vile and dangerous character of 
sin, and now really long to come to Christ, whose 
power to will to choose Christ seems to be para- 
lyzed. Their moral nature has become wavering, 
trembling, and uncertain. Day after day, tho 
convicted by the Spirit of God, they are unable to 
say to God, "I will," while they dare not say, "I 
will not"; and thus halting between two opinions 
they suffer untold sorrow and agony, but seem not 
to have the power to take the cup of happiness 
which Christ offers them. I beg of you, young 
men and young women, do not go on in your sins 
until you shall become like that ; but choose Christ, 
and act upon your choice here and now. 

In order to have salvation, sin must be given up. 
But you are infinitely better off with it given up. 
I doubt not you have all heard of Uncle John 



220 THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 



Vassar. He became one of the most remarkable 
soul-winners of his time. He was converted when 
he was about twenty -five years of age, being then 
at work in his uncle's brewery in Poughkeepsie. 
There was not so much said about temperance in 
those days, and a great many people thought that 
a man could make beer and still be a Christian. 
After he was converted, John Vassar made a little 
rack above the vat where he was at work in the 
brewery, on which he kept his Bible. He wanted 
to have his Bible there so he could study it. But 
soon there came an explosion. You may be sure 
there will always be an explosion when you take 
the Word of God where there is any kind of 
intoxicating liquor. This explosion blew John 
Yassar clear out of the brewery, and he never 
went back. His wealthy uncle offered to raise his 
wages, and finally offered to take him into partner- 
ship, but John said : " No, I will have nothing to 
do with this accursed thing.'' God wonderfully 
blessed him, and gave him thousands of jewels for 
the Master's crown. Who would not rather be in 
heaven, as Uncle John Vassar is to-day, enjoying 
the society of the thousands of men and women 
whom he led to Christ, than, after leading others 
astray all his life, to be in hell, having left the 
largest brewery on the Hudson Biver behind him 
to do the devil's work in the years to come? 



THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 



221 



But the point I wanted to impress is, that when 
John Vassar made up his mind that he was to be 
a Christian, and go nowhere except where his 
Bible could go, all manner of sin and himself had 
to part fellowship. If you desire to get rid of 
your besetting sin you must do away with all sin ; 
for all sin is akin, and it is not possible to cherish 
rebellion in your heart against God, and reject 
Christ as your Savior, and at the same time 
escape that one besetting sin of which you are 
ashamed. 

Many of you would come to Christ at once if it 
were not that some secret sins are holding you 
back, causing you to reject Christ's offer of salva- 
tion. With some of you the besetting sin is that 
of the young man that came to Christ, whose out- 
ward life was so correct and admirable that Jesus, 
looking upon him, loved him. Yet he went away 
with a cloud on his brow and sorrow in his heart, 
because of his secret devotion to the things of the 
world. Some of you are staying away because at 
the heart, tho you would not admit it, you are 
cowardly. You are afraid of being laughed at 
and twitted by some of your associates, and you 
are in sad danger of being laughed out of your 
soul. What a pitiable thing it would be to miss 
heaven and eternal life for fear of somebody's silly 
sneer ! Another is being held back because of a 



222 THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 



secret sin of impurity. A guilty passion has led 
you astray, and holds you in its deadly grip. To 
be a Christian means to break with that. In God's 
name do not let your lowest nature defeat your 
highest. Do not let the animal strangle to death 
the angel within you ! Here is another whose sin 
is simply putting off the confession of Jesus, but 
he has put it off so long that a deadly lethargy 
holds him to his seat. Oh, my friends, whatever 
it is that holds you back, count up all the cost and 
choose Christ now ! Break away from every sinful 
appetite and passion, from every unholy purpose, 
and come to Jesus, who is able to transform your 
heart and character into his own noble image ! 

But the devil whispers to some of you: "You 
can not come. You have sinned against the Lord 
so long, and so grieved the Holy Spirit, that you 
have no right to come." Ah ! but you have a right 
to come since he asks you. The foreman in a 
large machine factory was under conviction of sin 
and was greatly troubled, but the devil made him 
believe that he had been a sinner so long that he 
had no right to come to Christ. The owner of the 
factory, who was a good Christian man, found out 
the situation, and sent around to the works a card 
on which he had written, " Come to my house im- 
mediately after work." When the foreman ap- 
peared at his employer's door, the employer came 



THROWING PURSUERS OFF. 223 



°ut and said roughly : " What do you want, John, 
troubling me at this time? Work is done for to- 
day. What right have you here?" 

"Sir," said he, greatly surprised at his master's 
conduct, " I had a card from you saying that I was 
to come after work." 

" Do you mean to say that merely because you 
had a card from me you are to come up to my 
house, and call me out after business hours?" 

"Well, sir," replied the foreman, "I do not un- 
derstand you, but it seems to me that, as you 
sent for me, I had a right to come." 

"Come in, John," said his employer. "I have 
another message that I want to read to you." And 
he took down the Bible and read, " Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." "Do you think after such a mes- 
sage from Christ that you can be wrong in going to 
him?" 

The foreman saw the point at once, and from 
that hour entered into the joys of salvation. Fol- 
low his example now ! 



DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK OF 
THE HOME SHIPS. 



" Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the 
things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from 
them."— Eeb. ii. 1 (Rev. Ver.). 

There is an unmarked track across the seas — 
that is, it is unmarked except on the ocean charts 
— along which the great ocean steamers make their 
journey from land to land. If a shipwreck occurs, 
or the captain in any way loses control of his 
vessel, his greatest anxiety is not to drift out of 
the track of ships that might be able to give him 
help, and either tow his vessel homeward or at 
least take on board his passengers and crew. To 
drift out of the track of the home ships is to drift 
into the greatest peril of irretrievable disaster. 

Two years ago the bark Celadon was on her voy- 
age from Australia to Honolulu, and was not far 
from Hawaii, when a gale blew her off and cast 
her upon a sunken reef. The captain and crew, fif- 
teen men all told, were compelled to take to the 
two small boats. They succeeded in getting off 

only a few cans of provisions, a bag or two of sea 

224 



DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 225 

biscuit, and a keg of water, before the ship went to 
pieces. With this food they hoped to make their 
way to some island. 

But they found no land, and their supplies 
rapidly became exhausted. They were under the 
equator, and all day the sun beat down upon them 
mercilessly. For a time water was served out to 
the men by the spoonful, at the rate of eight 
spoonfuls a day to each. The heat increased their 
thirst, but the ration of water had to be reduced. 
At last a shower fell. Each boat was provided 
with a sail, and the men wrung out the sails 
and added a few drops of water to their scanty 
store. They were slowly dying of hunger and 
thirst. 

Finally the captain died, and they took the only 
sack which they had brought with them, and, put- 
ting the body in it, committed it to the waves ; the 
men with thick utterance and wailing voices join- 
ing in the service for the dead. 

On the twenty-third day of their drifting, every 
scrap of their food was gone. They had a little 
water left. 

On the thirtieth day the mate lay down in the 

bottom of the boat, prepared to go to sleep. " If 

you get sight of land inside of five hours," he said, 

" wake me up ; if not, let me stay asleep for good 

and all." 
15 



226 DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 

All at once one of the men called out, " I see 
land!" 

Some thought him crazy, but all pulled with 
their waning strength in the direction he pointed 
out. Sure enough, a little wooded coral reef came 
into view. They let the waves, which were run- 
ning rather high, cast them on the reef. 

Two natives, Fijians, soon came running down, 
with hatchets and long knives, as if to put the 
intruders to death ; but seeing their pitiful condi- 
tion, they went from threats to kindness. They 
helped them to land, and prepared food for them. 

One man was so near gone that he died on 
reaching the land. The other thirteen soon re- 
vived under the kind treatment of the two natives. 
They found that they were on an isle called Sophie 
Island, and that only two families of natives lived 
there; furthermore, that it was entirely out of the 
track of ships, that no vessel ever came to this 
little isle, and that it was so far from all other 
land as to make hopeless the attempt to reach any 
port. 

So these men settled down to a half-savage exist- 
ence, like thirteen Robinson Crusoes, hoping 
against hope for deliverance. They built a hut 
among the coconut-trees, and caught turtles and 
fish, and these with the coconuts served to keep 
them alive. But as the months went by their 



DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK, 227 

homesickness grew intense. They were Nor- 
wegians, and most of them had families in far- 
away Norway ; they guessed at the date of Christ- 
mas, and tried to have a little celebration of 
the holy festival, but it ended in bitter tears of 
awful loneliness. From the very first day of their 
landing they had kept a signal of distress flying 
from the highest point on the island, and kept one 
of their number continually on guard watching for 
a sail. Sometimes they saw a speck in the dis- 
tance, and hope would flutter at their hearts, only 
to give way to growing despair as the ship faded 
out in the distance without taking notice of their 
signal. 

But last July a ship did come. It seemed to 
observe their signal, and three of the men threw 
themselves into a canoe and paddled off to the 
visitor. It proved to be the drill-ship Clyde, of 
the British navy. The captain took the castaways 
on board, and by way of Australia and London 
they reached home, to the joy of their loved ones, 
who had given them up for dead. 

Our text suggests a similar danger which threat- 
ens every man or woman who drifts upon the sea 
of life without definitely choosing the heavenly 
port. Dr. Marcus Dods declares that it is mainly 
by drifting, by letting things slide, by trusting to 
luck or to nature, that people come to grief. All 



228 DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 

our observation shows us that it is not enough to 
be simply in a state of moral indifference; it is not 
enough not to choose evil. The only safety lies 
in positively and strongly choosing the good, and 
steering that way with all the force we have. The 
man who becomes a drunkard did not determine to 
be a drunkard, he only drifted ; he did not choose 
a clean, sober manhood, and steer toward that with 
all the" force of his soul. An energetic and posi- 
tive choice necessarily lies at the root of all moral 
growth. One of the great curses of humanity is 
drifting. The great men and women who achieve 
mighty deeds, and whose influence is uplifting and 
blessed, are never people who drift about and trust 
to luck or chance. They are people who choose 
their course, and having made their decision stand 
by it with a tenacity stronger than life itself. 

I beg of you, if you are drifting away from God, 
drifting away from the Bible, drifting away from 
habits of prayer, that you will take notice that you 
are drifting out of the track of the home ships that 
might give you help in the salvation of your soul. 
If some of you were to carefully think it over, I 
am sure you would be astonished to notice how far 
you have drifted away from heavenly and divine 
things since your childhood. There was a time 
when it would have been impossible for you to go 
to sleep at night without conscientiously review- 



DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 229 



ing your conduct during the day, and earnestly 
and tenderly praying to God to forgive anything 
that was wrong in it, and committing all that you 
had to his care. There was a time when sleep 
would never have come to your eyelids without 
that ; but how far some of you have drifted ! How 
long has it been since you really prayed? Or it 
may be that still the power of habit causes you to 
say a line or two of prayer that you learned at 
your mother's knee, but how long since, with con- 
scious earnestness, you lifted your heart to God in 
thanksgiving or in a plea for forgiveness? I fear 
some of you would be ashamed to acknowledge 
how utterly prayerless your life has come to be. 
You eat your food, you lie down at night and fall 
asleep, you rise up in the morning and go about 
your work, with no word of thanksgiving or prayer, 
as tho there were no God, as tho you had no soul 
to save, as tho there were no heaven to win or hell 
to shun. Alas! how far you have drifted from 
the track of Mercy's ships that are likely to carry 
a soul to heaven ! 

Some of you recall, while I speak in this vein, 
the Christian atmosphere of that old home where 
you grew up, an atmosphere made fragrant with 
the reading of the Bible and sweet songs of love 
and praise to Christ. Perhaps your mother, like 
mine, loved to sing the old hymns, and childhood 



230 DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 



as you look back on it seems full of Christian 
music. Perhaps the home is broken up now and 
the family scattered, and you have no hope of ever 
seeing that family group again unless perchance 
you catch the ship of Mercy for heaven, and meet 
them all before the throne of God. Perhaps the 
mother herself has ceased to sing on earth and has 
gone up to the heavenly choir. 

" Hushed are those lips, their earthly song is ended ; 
The singer sleeps at last ; 
While I sit gazing at her armchair, vacant, 
And think of days long past. 

" The room still echoes with the old-time music, 
As, singing, soft and low, 
Those grand, sweet hymns, the Christian's consolation, 
She rocks her to and fro. 

" Some that can stir the heart like shouts of triumph, 
Or loud-toned trumpet's call, 
Bidding the people prostrate fall before him, 
'And crown him— Lord of all. ' 

"And tender notes, filled with melodious rapture, 
That leaned upon his word, 
Rose in those strains of solemn, deep affection, 
' 1 love thy kingdom, Lord. ' 

" Safe hidden in the wondrous ' Rock of Ages, ' 
She bade farewell to fear ; 
Sure that her Lord would always gently lead her, 
She read her 4 title clear. ' 



DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 231 



"Joyful she saw 'from Greenland's icy mountains' 
The gospel flag unfurled ; 
And knew by faith 'the morning light was breaking' 
Over a sinful world. 

" 'There is a fountain, ' how the tones triumphant 
Rose in victorious strains, 
'Filled with that precious blood, for all the ransomed, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins. ' 

"In minor tones she sang of God's great judgments ; 
Broad was the sinner's road, 
Where thousands walked, forgetful of his mercy, 
To death's dark, dread abode. 

" Then, changing to a mood more sweet and tender, 
The notes would softer be, 
Speaking with joy of his great loving kindness 
Unchanging, sure, and free. 

"Sometimes, when hope was faint and storm-clouds 
gathered, 
And darkened seemed the day, 
Rose like a dirge, ' I would not live here alway, 
I ask thee not to stay. ' 

"Then, filled with faith's diviner inspiration, 
' O rise, my soul, ' she cries, 
' Stretch out thy wings and trace thy better portion, 
Press onward to the prize. ' 

"Dear saint, in heavenly mansions long since folded, 
Safe in God's fostering love, 
She joins with rapture in the blissful chorus 
Of those bright choirs above. 



232 DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 

" There, where no tears are known, no pain or sorrow, 
Safe beyond Jordan's roll, 
She lives forever with her blessed Jesus, 
'The lover of her soul. 

I am sure that some of you feel with sadness 
and with a deep conviction of sin that you have 
drifted far from the holy atmosphere that prompted 
your mother's songs, or that filled with simple 
confidence and trust your childhood's prayers. 
And the longer you continue to drift the farther 
you are going away from God and heaven. To- 
night we come to you with the life-boat, longing 
to have the joy of bringing you back from your 
wandering, back to the home port of prayer and 
thanksgiving and fellowship with God. 

Tho some of you have not found the rags of 
the prodigal, or the hunger of the starving sailors ; 
tho it may be that in a temporal way you may 
have prospered, and may be surrounded by com- 
forts and by friends who respect and love you, yet 
I know that I can call your conscience to witness 
that in drifting away from God you have drifted 
away from peace, and that your heart will know 
no rest until you are conscious again that it is all 
right between yourself and God. 

There is a classic story of a great Eastern king 
who was once passing through the land, and heard 
a shepherd playing upon his reeds. The music of 



DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 233 

the shepherd was so sweet that it gave joy to the 
soul of the man laden with care, and he took the 
shepherd to his palace to make of him a minister 
of joy. He found him so wise and so resourceful 
that he clothed him with authority, and made him 
the man who stood next the king. But the en- 
vious tongues that surround a monarch whispered 
that this man was a traitor. It was noted that 
each day he retired to his room and sat there 
alone. The king, resolved to find him plotting, 
burst open the door — and there sat the man clothed 
in his ancient shepherd's raiment, with his old 
shepherd's reeds in his hand, trying to charm back 
the happiness that lay in the dear and unforgotten 
days of long ago! Comforts had multiplied, 
slaves had waited on him, wealth had surrounded 
him with luxury, but happiness was found when 
these things were not and his life was simple and 
full of thanksgiving to God. So I say to you that 
if you could gather all the wealth and power and 
pleasures of the world, but in doing so should drift 
away from God, and away from that simple confi- 
dence and love which make it possible for you to 
look up into your Heavenly Father's face and say 
with childish confidence, " My Father !" you would 
be wofully defrauded. 

Some of you have drifted far away. Tou have 
lost your peace, and you are finding the thirst and 



234 DRIFTING OUT OF THE TRACK. 

the hunger and the ashes of disappointment. But 
over the waves of life comes Jesus Christ, your 
Savior. He has seen the hunger of your soul, 
he has heard your smothered cry for help. He 
who was lonely so many times during his pilgrim- 
age here on earth has sympathized with the home- 
sickness of your heart. And he comes, strong to 
deliver and mighty to save, Yield yourself to his 
keeping now ! 



THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 



"The power of an endless life."— Heb. vii. 16 (Rev. Ver.). 

I think few of us who have been reared in Chris- 
tian lands, and have had the sunlight of immortal 
hope always illuminating the very atmosphere we 
breathe, can understand the marvelous power of 
this hope in gilding all the joys of common life. 
And yet many live in the midst of this radiance of 
immortality as tho there were no Christ who had 
broken the bands of death and let the glorious sun- 
light into the darkness of the grave. 

The power of the hope of immortality is seen 
most strongly in the fact that those who are in- 
spired by it live lives that ever grow richer and 
stronger and more splendid as the years go on. 
A life given up to worldliness, which draws its 
sources of supply and its satisfaction and joy en- 
tirely from this present life, must, in the very na- 
ture of things, become more and more impov- 
erished as the years pass away. To the merely 
worldly soul one avenue after another of human 

joy and comfort becomes closed up. All the joys 

235 



236 THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 

and enlivening sensations that come from child- 
hood and youth — and they are very many and 
very sweet — must rapidly pass into the realm of 
memory; and so, one after another, every source 
of mere earthly delight must lose its power to be- 
stow upon us the good for which we long. Even 
tho, like Solomon, we retain our faculties, and our 
wisdom remains with us, and we continue to have 
power and wealth to serve it, yet the keenness 
and zest of a life which is drawn merely from the 
senses vanish with use, until, like that ancient 
king, we are compelled to admit that all is vanity 
and vexation of spirit. 

A strange thing has just come to light in the 
city of Palermo, Sicily. A widowed princess and 
her daughter of twenty years, who is blind, five 
years ago came into the possession of a great 
fortune, including a splendid palace in Palermo. 
This palace is composed of a great central build- 
ing with two wings. The lady occupied half of 
the lower story in the center, and lodged in the 
other half her man of affairs, a well-known busi- 
ness man who was married and the father of four 
children. 

One day, over four years ago, her business 
agent shut the princess and her daughter under 
lock and key, after having threatened her with 
death if she cried out, called for aid, showed her- 



THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 237 



self at the window, or gave any signs of life to 
the outside world. The poor woman submitted, 
through fear, and lived thus for four years with 
her blind daughter, terrorized, almost annihilated, 
and reduced to a condition of the most frightful 
misery. 

There were, however, all this time, servants at 
the palace — a coachman, a butler, a gardener, 
and a chambermaid. The villainous trustee dis- 
missed the chambermaid, changed the servants 
several times, and intimidated them or bribed them 
so well that no one betrayed him, not even those 
whom he had dismissed. 

Little by little he took away the furniture in the 
apartments of the princess, leaving her at last 
nothing but an old bed of straw that had been in 
one of the servant's rooms. He himself brought 
food for her and for her daughter, but in such 
small quantity that the princess was forced to steal 
to the window when she saw a servant approaching, 
and beg for the mercy of a piece of bread. 

To all persons who called at the palace it was 
announced that the princess had gone away with- 
out leaving her address, and people in Palermo 
had long questioned what this prolonged absence 
could mean. The agent had forced her to give 
him the right of attorney ; he was thus enabled to 
dispose of her fortune in perfect security. 



238 THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY, 

But at length, a short time since, the unfor- 
tunate woman succeeded in getting a letter to a 
distinguished lawyer in Palermo. She told him 
of her misery, her prison, the sufferings of herself 
and her daughter, and begged him to inform the 
authorities. The lawyer knew that he must act 
secretly and with the utmost haste. He took the 
letter to the procurator of police, and the latter 
gave his orders immediately, without announcing 
the aim in view. About an hour after noon, one 
day, the palace of the Carini was suddenly sur- 
rounded, and the procurator, followed by an ex- 
amining magistrate and a score of policemen, 
opened the door and forced his way into the apart- 
ments occupied by the princess. 

Nothing can surpass the sadness of the spectacle 
which met their eyes. The princess and her 
daughter, dressed in the foulest rags, pale, emaci- 
ated, shivering with cold, were found there in their 
strange dignity, almost naked. The two women, 
nearly mad at the sight of their deliverers, laughed 
and wept, but could not articulate a word. 

Altho the princess and her daughter were free, 
and at once took possession of the luxurious rooms 
of their palace, with unlimited means at their 
command, they were so overcome with fear through 
their long imprisonment that they begged to have 
police stationed at the palace. 



THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY, 239 



Sacl and tragic as this story is, it seems to me 
to be a graphic but not exaggerated illustration of 
the way worldliness, which shuts the inner eyes 
of the soul to immortal hope, robs and impover- 
ishes men and women. These women had inherited 
a great fortune, but were deprived of its use. 
Steadily, day by day, they were starved and 
abused, losing all the sweetness and comfort of 
life, tho they were all the time rich, and their very 
prison was their palace. And is that not true 
of those who shut their eyes, or are deceived by 
the enemy of their soul into giving all their at- 
tention and service to this present world? No 
man, however rich or learned or powerful he may 
be in this life, has because of that any treasures to 
carry with him into eternity. In the very nature 
of things life must get poorer to him all the time, 
for he must soon go away and leave it all. A 
worldly, material life, that leaves out God and 
Christ and heaven, is a fruitless life, because it 
has no permanent results. For a while, as Dr. 
Maclaren says, permanent results of a sort do fol- 
low everything that men do, for all our actions 
tend to make character, and they all have a share 
in fixing that which depends upon character, 
namely, destiny, both here and yonder. And 
thus the most fleeting of our deeds, which in one 
aspect are as transitory as the snow upon the valley 



240 THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY, 

when the sun rises, leave everlasting traces upon 
ourselves and upon our condition. But yet acts 
concerned with transitory things may have perma- 
nent fruit, or may be as transient as the things 
with which they are concerned. And the differ- 
ence depends on the spirit in which they are done. 
If the roots are only in the surface skin of soil, 
when that is pared off the plant goes. A life that 
is to be eternal must strike its roots down below 
the surface, down to the very heart of things. 
When the roots of our affections and our plans 
twine themselves around God, then the deeds 
which blossom from them will bloom in unfading 
beauty forever. 

Can you imagine anything sadder than a man 
who has lived here in this world for forty, or fifty, 
or sixty, or seventy years, and has given his whole 
time up to making money, coining his manhood 
into gold and silver, laying up no treasures beyond 
the shores of his earthly life, going up at last 
empty-handed to the judgment-seat of Christ, and 
saying with a pauper's whine : " O Lord, I made a 
big fortune down there in the world when I lived 
there; but sickness and death came along and 
carried me away, and I left it all behind me." Or 
another man, who has been studying into the 
mysteries of the rocks, or the strata of the earth, 
or the stars, but has had no time to think about 



THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 241 



the God who made the stars, standing in the 
blaze of the judgment to say : " I mastered a sci- 
ence, but one gleam of the light of eternity has 
antiquated it." Or a politician who has given his 
very soul to win votes and offices, to get power ; 
who has given his Sundays up to secret caucuses, 
has been too busy to attend revival meetings or 
listen to the "Word of God because he must stand 
well with the saloons and the ward-heelers — sup- 
pose he gains his prizes and is flattered for a while 
with applause, what a miserable beggar he is as 
he stands at last before the great white throne to 
say: "I gained my prizes, won my aims; but 
when death touched me they all dropped from my 
palsied fingers, and here I stand having to say in 
the most tragic sense, 6 Nothing in my hands I 
bring."' 

But here is another man. Possibly he has not 

been very successful in this world's achievements. 

People have always said about him : " He is a most 

lovable man, with such a sweet Christian spirit, 

but somehow he never knew how to get on well or 

lay up much for a rainy day." Death draws near 

to him and undertakes to loosen his fingers on his 

treasures, but even death stands back awed and 

reverential before that man's dying hour, for he 

carries all his treasures with him. Death, the 

great custom-house officer, finds the richest treas- 
16 



242 THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 

ures not on the dutiable list at a Christian's death- 
bed. His honesty, his sincere character, his lov- 
ing spirit, his fellowship with Jesus Christ, his 
peaceful conscience, his happy heart, his immortal 
hope, his eternal life are not treasures in death's 
category. Over his coffin the preacher will read : 
" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord ; they 
rest from their labors, and their works do follow 
them"; and standing before the judgment-seat, 
Jesus Christ, who once was crowned with thorns 
but now is crowned with glory, will rise up with 
outstretched arms to say : " Come, ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world. " 

Even childhood is brave when inspired by this 
power of an endless life. A father was once out 
late in the evening with his little daughter. The 
night was very dark, and they had passed through 
thick woods to the brink of a river. Far away on 
the opposite shore lights twinkled here and there, 
in a few scattered houses, and farther off still 
blazed the bright lamps of the great city to which 
they were going. The little child was weary and 
sleepy, and the father held her in his arms while 
he waited for the ferryman, who was on the other 
side. At length they saw a little light; nearer and 
nearer came the sound of the oars, and soon they 
were safe on the boat. 



THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 243 

"Father," said the little girl, "it's very dark, 
and I can't see the shore. Where are we going?" 

"The ferryman knows the way, little one; we 
will soon be over." 

Soon in her home, love welcomed her, and all 
her fears were gone. Some months passed by, 
and this same child stood on the brink of a river 
that is darker and more terrible still. It is the 
river of death! The same loving father is near 
her, distressed that his child must cross this river 
and he not be able to go with her. Forty days 
and nights he and her mother have watched over 
her, seeking to save the life of the precious one. 
For hours she has been slumbering ; but just be- 
fore the morning she suddenly awakens, with the 
eye bright and every faculty alive. 

"Father," she says, "I have come again to the 
river-side, and am waiting for the ferryman to 
come and take me across." 

With voice choked -with a grief that it seemed 
must break his heart, the father tremblingly in- 
quired, " Does it seem as dark and cold as when 
we crossed the other river, my child?" 

" Oh, no ! There is no darkness here ; the river 
is covered with floating silver. The boat coming 
toward me seems made of solid light, and I am not 
afraid of the ferryman." 

"Can you see over the river, my darling?" 



244 THE INSPIRATION OF IMMORTALITY. 



"Oh, yes! there is a great and beautiful city- 
there, all filled with light; and I hear music such 
as angels make." 

"Do you see any one on the other side?" 

" Why, yes, yes ; I see the most beautiful form, 
and he beckons me now to come. O ferryman, 
make haste ! I know who it is — it is — it is Jesus, 
my own blessed Jesus !" 

And so the child passed over the river of death, 
changed to a stream of floating silver, glorified by 
the presence of the Redeemer. 

Come to Christ, and let that glorious power of 
an endless life begin its career in your soul this 
very hour! 



THE LOKD'S SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S 
PALACE. 



" All the saints salute you, especially they that are of 
Caesar's household. "—Phil. iv. 22 (Rev. Ver.). 

Theee is something very gracious in this salu- 
tation which Paul conveys from the Christians in 
Rome to those in Philippi. The chief character- 
istic of the early Christians which attracted the 
attention of a pagan world that was full of hate and 
selfishness was their love toward each other. In- 
deed, that is the chief characteristic of genuine 
Christianity everywhere. There is no more sig- 
nificant utterance of Jesus than this: "By this 
shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
have love one to another." 

In the early days of Christianity, to become a 
Christian was to become at once the object of op- 
position and ofttimes of hatred and persecution. 
But while trouble came from without, the new con- 
vert received a marvelous recompense in the love 
which he received from within the infant church. 
As soon as a man embraced Christianity he was 

regarded as a brother and treated as a brother by 

245 



246 SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 

every Christian he met. And those Christians in 
Rome felt that their nearest kith and kin in the 
bonds of tenderest love and fellowship were among 
the other followers of Christ in Philippi. 

We need to emphasize in our day this char- 
acteristic of Christianity. It needs to be forever 
held in remembrance that the Christian church 
can not exist and do its rightful work in the world 
without this spirit. When this spirit of loving 
fellowship has gone out of it, it becomes merely a 
philosophical or ethical club from which all divine 
life and power has disappeared. Christ himself 
is the center of the Christian fellowship. When 
each member of a church loves Christ supremely, 
so that Jesus is enthroned in the heart's affections, 
all will naturally love each other because of their 
fellowship in him whom they have crowned in 
their heart Lord over all. There is something 
very tender in Christ's promise to those who for- 
sake all for his sake : " There is no man that hath 
left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or 
mother, or children, or lands, for my sake and the 
gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now 
in this time, houses and brethren, and sisters, and 
mothers, and children, and lands." 

The love which we have or do not have for those 
who are serving him is a certain test by which we 
may know whether we are indeed Christ's disciples. 



SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 247 



" We know that we have passed from death unto 
life," declares one who stood very near to Jesus, 
" because we love the brethren : he that loveth not 
his brother abide th in death." It is very evident 
that that is the true spirit of Christianity, for one 
of the marked experiences which we all feel in 
times of revival, when we become more keenly 
alive to Christian duty and privilege, when the 
Holy Spirit shines not only on the "Word of God 
but into our hearts, and we rejoice together over 
sinners turning to Christ, is that our sense of fel- 
lowship and Christian love is always greatly in- 
creased. We ought to live in this spirit of loving 
brotherhood all the time ; it certainly is not nec- 
essary that we should ever become selfishly and 
coldly critical of each other. If any heart does 
not respond to this, and you feel that Christians 
are no nearer to you because they are Christians, 
then I implore you that you draw near to God at 
the mercy-seat and plead for forgiveness and for 
the awakening in your heart that will make your 
love for Christ a new inspiration and will bring 
you closer to all those who sincerely love him. 

The main thought, however, to which I wish to 
call your attention is the unexpected place where 
these Roman saints are found. Paul says : " All the 
saints salute you; chiefly they that are of Caesar's 
household." The Caesar to whom Paul refers here 



248 SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 

was the bloodthirsty Nero, a man who was such a 
monster of vice and cruelty that he has come down 
through the centuries as a synonym of everything 
brutal and infamous in human character. Surely, 
the most unexpected place on earth to find saints 
of the Christian sort would be in the palace of a 
tyrant like that. We all know how the character 
and spirit of a king, or a president, or the head 
of an administration or of a house, affects the 
conduct of those who are dependent upon their 
master's pleasure for their employment — and in 
those old and bitter times were dependent for their 
very lives. And yet we know from Paul's writings 
that there were not only a few Christians in the 
household of Nero, but a good many of them. It 
is a marvelous testimony to the fidelity and devo- 
tion of Paul that tho he was only a poor prisoner 
at Nero's court, whose career was to end there 
by his being beheaded, he was able by his Chris- 
tian character and faithfulness to win an ever- 
widening circle around him to love the Christ who 
had become the supreme master of his own soul. 

In the opening of this letter to the Philippians, 
Paul expresses himself as fearful lest his friends 
should think that the afflictions which had come 
upon him had hindered the progress of the gospel. 
He assures them that just the opposite effect has 
been realized: "I would ye should understand, 



SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 249 

brethren, that the things which happened unto 
me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance 
of the gospel; so that my bonds in Christ are 
manifest in all the palace, and in all other places." 
And again, he says, speaking of the new converts : 
" And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing 
confident by my bonds, are much more bold to 
speak the word without fear." 

The eloquent Melville, meditating on Paul's 
triumph in Caesar's palace, says: "I think upon 
Rome, the metropolis of the world, upon the 
haughty Caesars giving laws to well-nigh all the 
nations of the earth. Oh, that Christianity might 
make way into the imperial halls ! I should feel 
as tho it were indeed about to triumph over 
heathenism, were it to penetrate the palace of 
Nero. And then I hear that St. Paul is approach- 
ing toward Eome — St. Paul, who has carried the 
gospel to the East and West, the North and South, 
and everywhere made falsehood quail before truth. 
My expectations are raised. This great champion 
of Christianity may succeed where there is most 
to discourage, and gain over Nero's courtiers, if 
not Nero himself. But then I hear that St. Paul 
comes as a prisoner. I see him used as a criminal, 
and debarred from all opportunity of publishing 
the gospel to the illustrious and powerful. My 
hopes are destroyed. The great apostle seems to 



250 SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 



me completely disarmed; and the picture which 
I had fondly drawn of Christianity growing domi- 
nant through God's blessing on his labors, disap- 
pears when I behold him detained in captivity, 
Alas, for human short-sightedness and miscal- 
culation! Never again let me dare reckon God's 
servant least powerfully when least visibly in- 
strumental in promoting his cause. St. Paul is a 
prisoner; he can not go boldly to the court 
and preach to the mighty ; but, in less than 
two years, he is able to declare, 'My bonds 
are manifest in all the palace,' and to enumer- 
ate among the saints who send greetings to the 
Philippians, 'chiefly them that are of Caesar's 
household.'" 

Surely there could not be a more important 
message for us to-day than the one suggested in 
this Scripture. We are so likely to be discouraged 
and ready to give up and do nothing because we 
are hindered from doing the large things in the 
brilliant way of which we have dreamed. It is 
not always the most showy and glittering service 
which most helps on the kingdom of God. The 
greatest deeds in the world have been wrought by 
those who did their best for the great cause that 
urged them on, and to which they gave their devo- 
tion in the midst of severe poverty and discourage- 
ment. As Dr. Watkinson so graphically and ear- 



SAINTS IN THE DEVIUS PALACE. 251 



nestly says, it takes the world a long time to learn 
that it is not the size of a man's purse, nor the size 
of his body, nor the size of his earthly power of 
any kind, but it is the size of a man's soul, the 
depth of his devotion and love, that counts most. 
The little goes a long way when managed by a 
great-souled and heroic nature. "Out of my 
poverty have I done this," said Turner, when he 
had painted his great masterpiece out of broken 
tea-cups. Christopher Columbus did not discover 
America in one of the great steam ferries that cross 
the Atlantic in a week, but he pushed his way by 
his enthusiasm and his devotion in a boat in which 
you would not be willing to risk yourself out of 
sight of land on Lake Erie. Through blindness 
John Milton gave us "Paradise Lost." Within 
prison walls John Bunyan gave us "Pilgrim's 
Progress," that has led thousands out of the City 
of Destruction, up from the Slough of Despond, 
and onward to the Palace Beautiful and the streets 
of gold. 

I would to God we might all understand that in 
this present campaign which we are making in this 
church to win multitudes of souls to Christ, it is 
first and last and all the time personal consecration 
to the Lord and his work which we need. It is 
not a question of strength or eloquence or position. 
It is a question of love, faith, hope, devotion, and 



252 SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 



of a soul on fire to kindle abroad love for Christ. 
It is only with these weapons that we can do great 
and marvelous works in seeking after the lost and 
winning them to our Lord. 

I return again to put emphasis on the fact that 
it is not the most brilliant gift that may be the 
most serviceable. I noticed the other day that the 
United States Government had decided not to wait 
for reindeer as means of transportation from the 
seaboard to the Klondike in carrying food to the 
miners. It seems it has been impossible for the 
government agents to get these animals from Lap- 
land in time to be of service this winter. It is the 
present purpose of the War Department to push 
through with mule pack-trains as far as possible, 
leaving the reindeer to follow up the trail if they 
come along at all. A mule is not by any means as 
aristocratic an animal as the reindeer, but when 
there is some hard work to be done, requiring 
fidelity and endurance, he is a remarkably service- 
able beast. I often think, when present at great 
conventions and dress parades of the Christian 
church, that modern Christianity has all the rein- 
deer it needs, but there is always room for those 
who are glad to be even the Lord's mules, and in 
fellowship with Jesus Christ carry burdens and 
pull loads if perchance through his grace they may 
help to bring the Bread of Life within the reach of 



SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 253 



those who are starving in the cold, dark mountains 
of sin. 

The secret of Paul's joy and gladness even when 
his hands were chained to his guard in prison was 
in the fact that he knew he was a serviceable 
Christian and was doing the work of Christ. 
Paul loved Christ so much that it was his greatest 
mission in life to spread abroad the good news of 
the Lord. Prisons, chains, stripes were all the 
same as palaces to Paul if all the time he was 
preaching Christ and winning those who were 
brought into contact with him to know the same 
heavenly joy that had come to his own heart. 
This secret of Paul's joyous experience in the 
midst of hardship is an open secret, and you and 
I may act upon it and enjoy the same glorious re- 
sults in our own lives. If any of you have been 
excusing yourselves from earnest effort for the sal- 
vation of souls because you are getting old, or you 
are poor, or your hands are tied by business en- 
gagements, I beg you to contrast yourself with 
Paul. Here was such an one who was " Paul the 
aged." And tho we have reason to believe that 
he was once wealthy, he was now so poor that he 
had to send word to a friend to bring an old cloak 
that had been left on his travels, because he shiv- 
ered with cold in his dungeon. One hand was 
chained to the hand of the soldier who guarded 



254 SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 

him. But under such circumstances Paul made 
no excuses ; he so gave his heart and life up to 
prayer to God and to conversations about Jesus, 
and lived the gospel so enthusiastically and sweetly 
before those who saw him, that a Eoman soldier 
could not be chained to him without finding Paul's 
religion contagious, and becoming himself con- 
verted to Christ. 

I want by God's grace to speak a word in season 
to any that have once known the Lord, but have 
grown weary and fallen out by the way. Some 
who hear me have, it may be, in other towns or 
cities, been open and earnest disciples of Christ, 
but coming into new surroundings you have failed 
to identify yourself with the kingdom of God here, 
and tho you still keep up, possibly, a form of 
religion, the vital fire which once flamed on the 
altar of your heart has died down to ashes. 

It has recently been decided to have an auction 
of schoolhouses in Western Kansas. The state 
officials have ordered that schoolhouses in de- 
populated districts, which are not in use, may be 
sold to the highest bidder. There are more than 
one hundred of these buildings scattered over the 
prairies, abandoned except as an abode for bats 
and owls. They are decaying and crumbling. Are 
there here those whose hearts were once the abode 
of Jesus Christ, where many a feast of divine fel- 



SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 255 



lowship was held, where often the heart burned 
within as the great Teacher sat and opened unto 
you the Scriptures ; but your coldness and your 
neglect have driven him away from your heart, 
and now the owls and bats of indifference and 
worldliness have taken possession, and all your 
soul fabric is crumbling and decaying because of 
your thoughtless and sinful life? If such is 
your sad case to-day, I pray that you will in peni- 
tence and faith implore again the coming of the 
Eedeemer. Tho you have slighted him, and 
treated him as you would no other friend, yet his 
love is so great that he will come back even now 
and bring to you again the joy of his forgiving 
love. 

And some of you who have never known the 
Lord should take courage from this brave and 
noble spirit and volunteer this day to be a soldier 
of Jesus Christ. Gen. O. O. Howard, a most de- 
vout and beloved Christian man as well as a brave 
officer, has recently told an interesting story of his 
conversion. He one day sat in uniform on a back 
seat in a small church. A little colored boy who 
sat beside him fell asleep, and rested his head on 
the General's breast. He was proud and sensitive 
and did not like the situation, but he always had a 
tender heart for children. It was in a time of re- 
vival, and the preacher came down the aisle speak- 



256 SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 



ing to one and another, asking them to go to the 
altar and seek Christ. Finally he came up to the 
young officer with a personal appeal. " Which side 
would you rather be on, the Lord's side, or the 
side of those who reject Christ?" the preacher 
said. Promptly and resolutely the General's 
heart answered : " The Lord's side" ; and he arose, 
buttoned up his military coat, and marched down 
the aisle to the altar, where he humbly knelt and 
committed himself to Christ. He did not at first 
find the light, but when he went back to his quar- 
ters he picked up "The Life of Hedley Vicars." 
He read it with deep interest. He could not un- 
derstand what was meant by the saying, so of fc re- 
peated: "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, 
cleanseth us from all sin." He knelt down and 
asked God to show him what it meant, and God 
did show him. His soul was filled with unspeak- 
able joy. Soon after this General Howard went to 
the war, and he says that on the eve of his first 
battle he became pale and weak at the sound of 
cannon and musketry and the roar of conflict. 
But he cried out to God to give him strength to do 
his duty, and quick as a flash his courage and 
strength came and he never faltered again in the 
face of any peril. One day his dear friend, Cap- 
tain Griffith, was shot down on the field of Gettys- 
burg, and the General helped to bear him a little 



SAINTS IN THE DEVIL'S PALACE. 257 

way back from the battle to die. He read at his 

friend's side the sweet words of Jesus : "Let not 

your heart be troubled : . . . in my Father's house 

are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have 

told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if 

I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, 

and receive you unto myself; that where I am, 

there ye may be also." At these words the dying 

captain lifted his eyes to those of his friend and 

said : " General Howard, I am not afraid to die. I 

am ready to go !" Ah, that is the way Christian 

soldiers can live and die. 

In the name of my Lord, this day, I call upon 

you to volunteer as the soldier of Jesus Christ ! 
17 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 

"This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, 
according to the prophecies which went before on thee, 
that by them thou mayest war the good warfare ; holding 
faith and a good conscience ; which some having thrust 
from them made shipwreck concerning the faith : of whom 
is HymeDseus and Alexander. " — 1 Tim. i. 18-20 (Rev. Yer.). 

Theke is something very beautiful in Paul's 
letter to this young man, Timothy, in the refer- 
ence which he makes to his living up to the 
prophecies which have been made concerning him. 
Paul is not referring here to any Scripture prophe- 
cies made in the Old Testament, but he no doubt 
alludes to the hopes which his mother and his 
relatives and friends had for him, and the dreams 
which they entertained of the strong and noble 
man he was some day to be. It is a great thing 
to be born in a Christian home and grow up sur- 
rounded by loving prophecies that plan for us a 
life pure and noble. To have good people believ- 
ing in him is a great bulwark to a young man, and 
a youth must be very hard-hearted indeed who can 
falsify all the prophecies of a good mother or a 
noble father, and cause all their dreams to come to 

naught, without deepest sorrow and anguish. 

258 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 259 



Yet many that have gone down to the depths of 
sorrow and despair have had loving prophecies 
made about them in their youth, as splendid as 
any concerning those who have climbed the heights 
of noblest triumph. Hartley Coleridge, the son 
of the greater Samuel Taylor Coleridge, inherited 
from his father the moral blight of a weakened and 
vicious" will, and instead of fighting it in the 
streDgth of God he gave himself over to the bond- 
age of the destroying appetite for strong drink. 
His life was a failure, and in later years he wrote 
these sad and pathetic lines on the fly-leaf of a 
Bible given to him when he was but a youth : 

" When I received this volume small, 
My years were barely seventeen, 
When it was hoped I should be all 
Which once, alas ! I might have been. 

"And now my years are thirty-five ; 
And every mother hopes her lamb, 
And every happy child alive, 
May never be what now I am. " 

If there are those who hear me who have been 
untrue to the prophecies and hopes and dreams of 
those who loved you most tenderly in your child- 
hood and youth, I pray God you may come back 
to the Christ who is able to save you even now ! 

It is interesting to notice what Paul regarded as 



260 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 



the equipment necessary for warring a good war- 
fare, and the making a safe journey of the voyage 
of life. "Holding faith and a good conscience." 
Conscience is the compass to direct the ship's 
course, and faith the sails that are to drive her on 
her way. No ship is ready to go to sea that lacks 
either compass or sails. What a fool a captain 
would be who would allow anybody to interfere 
with the perfect condition of his compass ! but he 
would be less foolish than the man who is untrue 
to his conscience. A man who stands faithful 
to his conscience has always God's voice in his 
heart to tell him which way to steer. Better lose 
your position, better lose any temporary success, 
than to warp or destroy in any way your con- 
science. 

There was an Irish boy whose master wished to 
lengthen a web that was short measure. He gave 
the boy one end, and took hold of the other him- 
self. He then said, " Pull, Adam, pull !" but the 
boy stood still. " Pull, Adam !" he shouted again. 
But the boy said, "I can't, sir." 

"Why not?" the master asked. 

"My conscience will not allow me." 

"You will never do for a linen manufacturer," 
the master replied. 

That boy became the famous Dr. Adam Clarke, 
and persuaded tens of thousands of men to hold 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 261 

faith and a good conscience. Though he is dead, 
like Abel he yet speaks all the world round for 
righteousness. 

Faith and a good conscience steady the soul in 
the time of peril. A few weeks ago the rain which 
fell upon the tracks and the car decks of the Moun- 
tain division of the Pennsylvania railroad was 
turned into ice almost instantly. This rendered 
both tracks and cars unusually dangerous, and the 
descent of the steep grade between Gallitzin and 
Altoona was attended by imminent peril. A big 
mogul engine, hauling forty-three heavily laden 
cars, passed through the tunnel at Gallitzin and 
began to descend the mountain. Soon after leav- 
ing the tunnel, the engineer saw that the train was 
beginning to move very rapidly. He applied the 
air-brakes, but as that did not perceptibly reduce 
the speed, he whistled "down brakes." Still the 
terrible speed increased, and the long train swept 
around the " Horseshoe curve" at the rate of sixty 
miles an hour. The men expected to be hurled 
into the abyss, but the train rounded the sharp 
curves and rushed on with ever-increasing speed 
till it crashed into another freight train in Al- 
toona. The engineer and his fireman went down 
in the wreck, and the dSbris of the cars and their 
contents were piled thirty feet above them. 
Strangely enough, neither was much hurt, and 



262 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 



both men were able to crawl from beneath, the 
towering ruins. 

The first thing these two men, who had been 
facing death all the way down the mountain, did 
after they emerged from the wreck was to drop on 
their knees on the track and thank God for their 
preservation. Men ordinarily careless and indif- 
ferent stood awed and deeply impressed before their 
reverent worship. The engineer has been for years 
an earnest Christian man. It was his faith in God 
and his good conscience that enabled him to sit 
with his hand upon the throttle, calmly awaiting 
what seemed to him the inevitable end. When the 
newspaper men interviewed him in his home, he 
was remarkably tranquil, and said with modest 
humility : " The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ 
is a splendid possession in the moment of dire 
peril." 

There is no danger of shipwreck so long as we 
hold fast to faith in God a^.d a conscience void of 
offense toward God and man. All heaven guards 
the soul that is thus equipped. I have been read- 
ing recently, in a story by Mark Guy Pearse, an 
incident which I have often experienced myself at 
sea, when lying in my berth in the stillness of the 
night, hundreds or possibly thousands of miles 
from the nearest land. When the waves were toss- 
ing against the side of the ship, just outside, like 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 



263 



living things impatient of their prey, I would hear 
the bells ring out the hour, and the strokes re- 
peated by the lookout man on the bow, followed 
by a cheerful cry, "All's well; lights burning 
bright." And then down amidships another man 
would repeat the strokes, and back again would 
come the cry "All's well." There is no sweeter 
note at sea than that. The passenger that hears 
it turns over in his berth to go to sleep again in 
confidence. "All's well; lights burning bright" — 
so long as we keep our faith in God and our con- 
science true, those are the cheery words that come 
to us amid all the storms of life. 

How is it with you to-night? Have you the 
witness in your own heart that all is well? If you 
can not say promptly that this is so, then you must 
know that it is not all well, and you need to come 
closer to Christ. Suppose you were at sea on an 
ocean unknown to you, and some night you should 
meet one of the officers and inquire "Is all well?" 
and he should reply, "Well, I hope so." You 
would be alarmed in a moment. Tou would never 
be satisfied with an answer like that. You would 
at once understand that he really meant "I am 
afraid not." And so sometimes at the door of this 
church, as I shake hands with the people coming 
in, I inquire of a man or a woman, "Are you a 
Christian?" And they hesitate, and say, "I don't 



264 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 



know." I am alarmed at once, for I know that 
down in their hearts they feel that they are not. 
They are on an unknown ocean, far from the port, 
and have lost hold of faith and a good conscience. 
Do not go on in such a condition as that, for God is 
able and willing to come into your life and take 
full possession of your heart, and give you to know 
the gladness of your salvation. 

You may be very sure that if you are in doubt 
about your relation to God, it is not well with you, 
and you have every reason to be alarmed. A trav- 
eler, telling the story of a voyage, said that once 
the officers of the ship could not take the reckon- 
ings in the storm, and supposed that they were off 
a notoriously rough headland. It was blowing a 
hurricane right ashore, and the traveler asked one 
of the officers where they were. He said he did 
not know exactly, but that they had turned the 
ship right out to sea. All night the captain was 
on the deck ; and all night the lead was being flung 
out and the depth taken. They knew well enough 
within a few miles where they were; but that 
would not do. With the shore not far away, a 
little distance might make all the difference be- 
tween safety and shipwreck. So if you do not know 
where you are, I beg you lift up your hearts to the 
great Pilot that he may come aboard and take 
possession of your storm -tossed ship. Christ, 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 265 



our guide and captain, who knows the way, is 
ready to come and bring us safely to the haven of 
rest. If you will confess him, and rest in him, 
you may go to sleep with the glad cry ringing in 
your ears, "All's well; lights burning bright!" 

We do not know just what it was that led these 
two men, Hymenseus and Alexander, to lose hold 
of their good conscience and faith and make the 
awful shipwreck about which Paul writes. Per- 
haps they formed bad associations, where their re- 
ligion was sneered at, and they held back from fel- 
lowship with the people of God until after a while 
they became ashamed themselves of their friend- 
ship for Christ. I have known people to allow 
their religion to be undermined in that way. 
Sometimes young people, who have never thought 
about being ashamed of Christ in their old home, 
come up to the big city, and in the boarding-house 
or in the store or the office they run across an at- 
mosphere that is full of sneers at Christianity and 
Christian people. If they would speak right out 
bravely and stand up for Christ with loyalty, they 
would win the admiration and respect of these very 
people, and would possibly win them to accept 
Jesus; but by keeping still and failing to show 
their colors they soon make shipwreck of what 
faith they have. 

Perhaps these men had only a theoretical faith 



266 THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 

in Christ. They had heard about him and had 
watched the remarkable transformation that had 
come over some of their friends who had become 
Christians, and when anybody asked them if they 
believed in Christ they said, " Oh : certainly, I be- 
lieve in Christ. I know he is able to save." But 
when they were pressed to put their faith into 
their life and really come to Christ, and take him 
as their Savior, they hesitated and delayed about 
it, until after a while they grieved away the Holy 
Spirit and were lost in shipwreck. 

It is not enough to have a theoretical faith in 
Jesus. One must have an acting faith that really 
comes to Christ. There must be a distinct coming 
to Christ, a renouncing of sin, and obedience to 
God. It is not the people who admire Christ, or 
who have a theoretical faith in him, and, it may 
be, say many pleasant things about him, whom 
Christ promises to save ; it is those who actually 
come to him. This is his promise: "Him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Thomas 
Spurgeon says that that promise is the sheet-an- 
chor of the sinner's hope of salvation. Suppose 
there is out here in the lake a storm-tossed ship. 
The captain has lost control of her, and she seems 
certain to drift ashore. One anchor after an- 
other is thrown over without success. She still 
drifts. The auchors will not hold. Finally, they 



THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 



267 



throw out the sheet-anchor, and you watch anx- 
iously. Presently the motion of the ship seems 
stayed a little, and after a while she brings up sud- 
denly and is held fast, and the people who are 
about you cry out: "It holds! It holds!" Ah, 
often I have seen this in spiritual matters. I have 
seen many a man who was convicted of his sin, 
and who felt that he had lost the control over his 
life, and that he was steadily drifting toward the 
rocks and certain disaster. I have seen such a 
man throw out one anchor after another. I have 
seen him sign the pledge, or change his employ- 
ment, or go to a new town that he might be under 
different surroundings ; but the anchors would not 
hold. I talked with a man the other day who 
sobbed and cried as tho his heart would break as 
he told me that his sins had caused him to leave 
his home in old England and come over here, 
hoping he might get away from the old associations 
and have sailing room for a new chance, but he 
said, as he sobbed in despair: "I've fallen into the 
old sin here! what shall I do? what shall I do? 
My father and mother are broken-hearted, and I 
hate my sin, and yet I drift right back into it 
again! what shall I do?" I have seen men like 
that, when every anchor had dragged, finally per- 
suaded to cast out "The Sinner's Sheet- Anchor," 
and come to Jesus Christ, and give him their 



268 THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. 



whole hearts. And I have seen the joy in the 
faces of their friends as well as in their own as 
they have shouted " It holds ! It holds !" I offer 
you " The Sinner's Sheet- Anchor" to-night. It is 
not my word. It is the word of him who spake as 
never man spake. It is the word of him who has 
all power to keep his promise unto your salvation. 
Hear him, and act upon it, here and now. " Him 
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." 



CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 



" In all these things we are more than conquerors through 
him that loved us. " — Rom. viii. 37 (Rev. Ver.). 

Theee very striking and significant phrases 
are contained in this text. The first is in the 
words, "these things." The things specified are 
in the verses immediately preceding and immedi- 
ately following this one. To appreciate them, the 
paragraph must be taken entire : " Who shall sepa- 
rate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, 
or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or naked- 
ness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these 
things we are more than conquerors through him 
that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate us from the love of God, which 
is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

Now these are things we know about. They are 

things with which every one of us has to deal; 

for, however far away some of them may seem 

now, it is impossible to go through this world 

269 



270 CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 



without having to do with tribulation and anguish, 
and ofttimes with poverty and with many and un- 
foreseen perils. Some of you have to meet these 
things this very moment. The troubles of life are 
universal. Their seeds are in the very air we 
breathe, and we have to struggle with them as best 
we may. Paul says that in Jesus Christ is found 
divine help that can give us the power to over- 
come them and come off victorious. In another 
place Paul declares that Jesus Christ is able to 
help us, and comfort us, and intercede for us 
before the throne of God, because he knows our 
troubles and sorrows, having gone through them 
himself. In order that he might become the Cap- 
tain of our salvation, he was perfected through 
suffering. For thirty-three years he lived in the 
midst of this human life, experienced its poverty, 
was the object of suspicion and envy and jealousy 
and hatred, was insulted and abused, went hungry 
and thirsty, was lonesome and homesick, was 
beaten with stripes, was deserted by his friends, 
was plotted against by wicked enemies, was be- 
trayed to death by a bosom companion, and was 
tempted in all points like as we are. Surely we 
can all see that this fits Jesus Christ to be our best 
friend and helper in the hard places of life. There 
is nothing better than a like experience to make us 
able to help another who is in trouble. 



CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 271 



A traveler in Switzerland, in writing of his ex- 
periences in that country, gives a very beautiful in- 
cident. The window of a little shop in an old ar- 
cade in Berne was filled one day with crosses and 
hearts intended for the decoration of graves, and 
among them were several slabs of marble, with the 
inscription, "In memory of my sister," and other 
similar sentiments. A number of tourists had 
halted to laugh at what they called the unculti- 
vated taste shown in these cheap votive offerings. 
Apart, and quite unconscious of them, stood a poor 
Swiss maid-servant. Her eyes were full of eager 
longing and the tears slowly ran down her cheeks. 
The slab which she coveted was the cheapest and 
poorest of the lot, a black slab, white-lettered ; but 
the inscription was, "To my dear mother." 

" She stops every morning to look at that," whis- 
pered the shopkeeper. "But she won't have 
enough money to buy it in years." 

"Tell her she can have it," said one of the tour- 
ists, a well-dressed man, in a loud voice. "I'll 
pay for it." 

"Monsieur is very generous," answered the 
shopkeeper. "But I doubt — she is no beggar." 

While they were speaking, a young American 
girl, who, with sympathy expressed in her face, 
had been watching the woman, drew her aside. 

"lama stranger," she said. " I have been very 



272 CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 



happy in Berne. I am going away to-morrow, 
never to come back again. I should like to think 
somebody here would remember me kindly. Will 
you not let me give you that little slab to lay on 
your mother's grave?" 

The woman's face was filled with amazement, 
and then with delight. The tears rained down her 
cheeks. She grasped the girl's hand in both of 
her own. 

" You, too, have lost your mother? Yes? Then 
you can understand ! I thank you, gracious lady." 

Ah, it was the experience back of the sympathy 
and the kind deed that made it possible for the 
young woman for the moment to personate Jesus 
Christ, her Lord, as the comforter of the sad- 
hearted stranger. What we can do imperfectly at 
best, Jesus can do perfectly; for while he came 
out from them without sin, without spot on his 
garments, he yet knows the terrible temptations 
through which we have to go. 

The second impressive phrase is, "More than 
conquerors." I think that seems a little exagger- 
ated at first. We say to ourselves, How can one 
be more than a conqueror? But that all clears 
away with a little reflection. One may be a con- 
queror, and yet at a fearful cost. There have been 
many times when a general has won a victory and 
held the battle-field, while his enemy was com- 



CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 273 



pelled to retreat, and yet felt that his victory was 
almost worse than defeat — it had cost so heavily. 
But when we win a victory without any loss at all 
— that is, losing nothing that is of any value to us 
— then surely we are more than conquerors. Here 
is the gold that is brought out of the mine in dirt 
and rock, where its beauty, usefulness, and glory 
have been hidden away for thousands of years ; and 
it goes through the crusher, and the shaking-table, 
and the furnace, and under the die, and comes out 
a shining gold coin with the face of a queen, or 
with the American eagle and the symbol of liberty 
upon it. It might as well talk of what it has lost, 
as for a sinner to talk about what he has to give 
up, or lose, to become a Christian. From the time 
the miner's pick or blast dug the gold out in broken 
rock until it lies on the bank-counter a shining 
coin, it has never lost anything except its dirt and 
its dross. And so from the time the sinner is con- 
victed of his sin, and his hard heart is hammered 
to pieces by the Word of God, and he is drawn 
toward the mercy-seat by the loving invitations of 
Jesus, until he stands with joyous face and glad 
heart confessing Christ as his Savior and Lord, 
the only thing he has to lose is his dross and the 
dirt of his sin. Surely he is more than conqueror. 
Perhaps there is another way in which this 

phrase ought to be emphasized for the comfort and 
18 



274 CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES, 

encouragement of those who long to be Christians, 
and yet are afraid to start because they fear they 
will not be able to hold true to their profession of 
Christ. Surely in Paul's promise that comes in, 
and Paul ought to be a good witness. Not one of 
you will have to fight such battles as Paul had to 
encounter. Suppose your becoming a Christian 
meant that you must start out to face mobs, and be 
beaten and stoned until you were unconscious, and 
picked up for dead in the streets ; and, in the next 
town, be taken up and whipped at the public whip- 
ping-post because of your Christian faith ; and in 
the next place, after having been beaten by the mob 
until you were torn and bleeding, be thrust, sup- 
perless, into the inner prison, with your feet in the 
stocks, to lie there on the stone floor. Suppose 
that, in the first large city you reach, they would 
take you and put you in a stall, like a wild beast, 
and make you fight with a lion, life for life, in the 
dust and blood of the arena, for the idle amusement 
of a brutal crowd. Paul went through that, and 
that is the sort of man who writes this promise. 
He knew what he was talking about. How insig- 
nificant, after all, seem all the foes you have to face 
compared to what this man had been through and 
experienced when he says, " In all these things we 
are more than conquerors." 

I am not asking you, however, to undertake the 



CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 275 



Christian life in your own strength, and that brings 
me to call your particular attention to the third 
emphatic phrase of the text. Paul's basis of glo- 
rious conquest is that we shall be more than con- 
querors "through him that loved us." A man can 
do all things when once he gets it down into his 
heart that the divine Christ loves him and will 
stand by him to the end ! I have read you that 
old, old, yet ever new, story of the prodigal as our 
Scripture lesson. Did you notice that it was when 
the prodigal began to think of his father, and re- 
membered — what he had forgotten for a long time 
— how his father loved him, that he " came to him- 
self"? Mark Guy Pearse says that he found the 
father's love, and then he found himself. Before 
it was, "I am lost"; now it is, "I am loved." 
While he was feeding the swine and eating the 
husks and thinking sadly of the mean way in 
which the people who had eaten his suppers and 
drank his wine had treated him when he lost his 
money, he was saying about himself, "I am noth- 
ing to anybody" ; but now when he stops to think 
about his father, he says, " I am something to him 
— to him I am much, I am everything. He would 
rather see me come than the richest man in the 
country. Mean as I've been to him, he loves me." 
And he arose and went to his father. So long as 
you hang back and think about your sins, and re- 



276 CHRIST'S CONQUERING HEROES. 

member what miserable work you have made of 
trying to do right in your own strength, and reflect 
only on the meanness of sinful humanity, it is no 
wonder you are discouraged, and say, "There's no 
use of my starting! I wouldn't stick. I couldn't 
carry on a Christian life among the people where I 
work," and all that sort of despairing talk. But if 
you'll turn about face and stop looking at yourself, 
and look to Jesus and remember that he loves you, 
you will be uplifted and will be ready to say with 
Paul in his letter to the Philippians : " I can do all 
things through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
You see what a tremendous ally you have. The 
moment you give yourself to Christ, no matter how 
poor and helpless you feel, you have his fresh and 
glorious strength added to yours. Ah, that's the 
blessed privilege of our humanity— that we may 
take holgl upon him as our strength. 

Do not reject this divine help which he offers 
you. Do not grieve the loving heart of him who 
comes with outstretched hand to lead you out of 
your weakness and your sin to glorious victory. 



THE GKEAT WKESTLING MATCH. 



" Abhor that which is evil ; cleave to that which is good." 
—Rom. xii. 9 (Rev. Ver.). 

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." 
— Rom. xii. 21 (Rev. Ver.). 

These two texts properly belong together, and 
they reveal to us how clear to Paul's mind was the 
antipathy between good and evil. No possible 
compromise can be made between them. A man 
can not hold on to both sides. Christ says we can 
not serve God and Mammon, speaking of only one 
phase of evil. It is just as true to say that we can 
not serve good and evil, putting it in the broadest 
sense. No man can serve two masters, says Christ. 
Anybody that undertakes it will soon find that one 
of them comes into supremacy. He will hate the 
one and love the other, or cleave to the one and 
despise the other. 

Tremendously strong words are these which 

Paul uses to show the intensity of the warfare 

which is constantly going on between the good and 

evil. It is not enough for us simply to be neutral ; 

277 



278 THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 

we should be just as positive in our cleaving to the 
good as we are in abhorring the evil. There is 
something intense and cutting, like a sword, in the 
separation indicated between these two words. 
We are to abhor that which is evil. That is the 
beginning of a Christian life. A man abhors his 
sins before he loves righteousness. The word 
" abhor" is no feeble word. Put disgust and hate 
and indignation and contempt all together and 
shake them up, and you can get that word abhor; 
and yet a great many men abhor their sins and are 
not saved. I have seen a man who so loathed his 
sin that its horrible character was ever before him, 
and he could not think of it or hear it spoken of 
without hanging his head in shame, and yet he 
went on committing it. Thousands of men go 
down to eternal darkness abhorring and loathing 
the sins that have robbed them of their peace and 
led them, miserable slaves, to destruction. One 
must not only abhor his sins, but turn from them, 
and cease to do them by filling the mind and heart 
with something to take their place ; which brings 
in the other side of the picture, " Cleavo to that 
which is good." That word "cleave" means not 
simply shaking hands. It is the grasp with which 
a drowning man seizes and holds the life-line that 
is thrown him from the shore or the ship. It is 
the grasp with which a mother holds her child 



THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 279 



when in the midst of some sudden peril. " Cleave 
to that which is good. " 

Between these two qualities, good and evil, there 
is a wrestling match in every human life. We can 
not be neutral. We are called upon by the Word 
of God not simply to stand on the defensive, but 
to take the aggressive and overcome the evil with 
the good. That is possible in every human soul. 
There never yet was a man so placed, or so consti- 
tuted, that the aggressive good which he is able to 
draw to his aid in Jesus Christ, his Savior, was 
not, and is not, strong enough to attack and over- 
come all the evil of his nature and all the evil forces 
that can be brought against him. 

Some of you stand at a very critical time in the 
story of your life. You are drawn both ways. 
There are many things that are influencing you 
toward evil, while on the other hand Christ is 
knocking at the door of your heart and the Holy 
Spirit is drawing you toward the good. Tou have 
been rather indifferent, and have tried to escape an 
earnest life-and-death grapple between the good 
and the evil. But you can not escape from such 
a struggle. If you just let it alone and let matters 
take their course, the evil is absolutely certain to 
overcome the good, and you will be given over to 
everlasting defeat. All that can save you from dis- 
aster is that you shall arouse yourself from this 



280 THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 

lethargy, and by accepting Christ as your Savior 
positively and aggressively " cleave to that which 
is good." 

I have been very much interested recently in an 
account given by Eev. Dr. George F. Pentecost of 
the conversion of his son. The young man had 
been studying in Germany, and had become very 
skeptical in regard to the Christian truth which 
was so dear to his father and mother, and which 
in his childhood he had never doubted. His 
father was a pastor in London, and the young 
man, tho in business, lived at home. He finally 
stayed away from the church services, and for 
many months had not listened to a sermon. There 
came a time when his father saw that he was very 
restless and unhappy, and felt that a momentous 
struggle was going on in the boy's heart, which 
would probably decide whether he would ever be- 
come a Christian or not. During these days the 
father and mother gave themselves up largely to 
secret prayer on his behalf. 

One evening, in the week before Communion 
Sunday, Dr. Pentecost was reading and his son 
was sitting on the other side of the open grate fire 
with his face buried in his hands— a favorite posi- 
tion of his when in thought. Presently the doctor 
was aroused by his son's saying : 

"Father, what are the conditions necessary 



THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 281 



to qualify one for coming to the Lord's Sup- 
per?" 

He was somewhat surprised at this question 
from his son ; but regarding it for a moment as but 
a passing thought, he replied without looking in 
his direction : 

"Why, the conditions necessary to partake of 
the Lord's Supper are just those that are necessary 
to partake of life in him. Whatever puts one into 
union with Christ qualifies him to show forth that 
union in the celebration of the Supper. In other 
words : * If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
and heartily accept him as your Savior and Lord, 
you are qualified to eat of the Supper.' " 

While he was making this answer, Dr. Pentecost 
began to wonder why his son had asked such a 
question, and especially after a half-hour of silence. 
The question must have arisen out of his present 
thoughts, and they must have been in the direction 
of his question. So he turned and faced the boy, 
who was still sitting with elbows on his knees, and 
face buried in his hands. 

" Why, my boy, do you ask this question — gen- 
erally, in respect of other people, or are you 
speaking for yourself?" 

At this the young man lifted up his face from 
his hands and looked at his father. The tears were 
coursing down his cheeks, and he said, with a 



282 THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 

broken voice: "Well, father, I can not live as I 
have been living. It is not good enough, and 
I am tired of it. I must either give myself to 
God, or I must go straight to the devil. The 
ground I am living on now is not tenable, and I 
can not stay long where I am. So I say, I must 
either give myself to God or go straight to the 
devil." 

" Tell me, my dear boy, just what you mean by 
that," the father replied, with his heart in his 
throat. 

"Well, you know about what kind of a life I 
have been living for the past year or two. I have 
not gone far toward the bad, but have just been 
living for the passing hour and such pleasures as I 
could get out of a respectable life, on the edges of 
a world of sin and wickedness into which I have not 
yet gone. As I have said, the life I am now living 
is not good enough. It bores me terribly. To go 
over wholly to the world I can see plainly means 
ruin. There is no other place to go unless one 
goes over to God. Therefore I say I must either 
give myself to God or go to the devil. I am frank 
to confess that there is much in the life of the 
world which I have not seen or tasted which at- 
tracts and fascinates me ; but I know that such a 
life would mean death and ruin. On the other 
hand, I must confess that the Christian life does 



THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 283 

not much appeal to me, it does not attract me, 
except that I know it is the right life." 

"Well, my boy," the father answered, "go on 
and talk out all your heart to me. Tou know how 
gladly I will help you if I can. Tou can not doubt 
that my whole heart is in deepest sympathy with 
you in this struggle." 

"Well, father, you know that I have been some- 
what skeptical about many things connected with 
the Bible and Christianity. I have never doubted 
the existence of God, and I do not think I have 
really doubted, at least I have certainly never so 
disbelieved the general facts of Christianity as 
to call myself an infidel. The whole matter of 
Christ's coming, his death and resurrection, and 
salvation in him, is not clear to me. I do not 
know whether I believe or not. But, father, I be- 
lieve in you and mother; and you believe in God 
and in Christ, and are Christians ; and if you think 
God will take me just as I am, I am ready to give 
myself to him. I am very sinful and very weak 
and very ignorant ; and I am not at all sure that I 
can live a consistent Christian life. I can not go 
on as I am; I do not want to go to the bad; I am 
persuaded that I ought to follow Christ ; and after 
all I have told you, if you think he will take me, I 
am ready to surrender now." 

No words can ever describe the joy of that 



284 THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 

father's heart as he assured his son that the blessed 
Lord was glad to have him just as he was ; that he 
can take us in no other way ; that it is our sin and 
our ignorance and our weakness which appeal to 
him, and that he only waits for a willing heart and 
mind in men; that "he is able to save unto the 
uttermost' ' and " keep from falling" all those who 
come to him. 

The father proposed that they should kneel 
down and talk it all out to God. They did so, and 
he prayed, thanking God for his goodness in bring- 
ing his dear son to himself ; for all the way he had 
led him ; for all the patient, loving kindness of his 
grace, and for that happy hour; and asking that 
he would keep him in the hollow of his hand and 
guide him into that way of life he would have him 
go. 

Then the boy prayed for himself. With broken 
voice he poured out his heart to God in confession, 
and besought Jesus to forgive all his sins, and to 
help him to live for his glory, to do some work for 
him, and be a help to "my father." 

When they arose from their knees and looked 
each other in the face, the relationship of father 
and son was for a moment lost in a new kinship — 
they were brothers in Christ. 

After the boy had gone to bed, Dr. Pentecost 
hastened to the mother's room, and, tho he 



THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 285 



found her asleep, he wakened her and told her the 
good news. Far into the night he heard the soft 
crying of that mother over her son's return. They 
were tears of gladness and joy, and he did not dis- 
turb their flow. 

The following Sunday the young man came with 
his mother and sister to the communion. He at 
once told his nearest companions of the, step he 
had taken. Two or three of them followed him 
into the church at the succeeding communion. 

And now here is a matter which I wish specially 
to emphasize for the benefit of any young man 
whom the devil may have led to believe that a gen- 
uine outspoken Christianity and an enthusiasm for 
the work of the Lord would harm him in his busi- 
ness life. A few months after his son's conversion, 
Dr. Pentecost happened to meet the man under 
whom the son was getting his training for his 
technical profession. The gentleman remarked to 
the doctor: "Do you know that during the last 
few months the most wonderful change has come 
over your son? I was really fearing that he would 
not do. Not that he neglected his work, but that 
it seemed to bore him. He took no interest in it 
apparently, and was only anxious to get his daily 
task done. He would always do faithfully, and 
fairly well, what he was bidden to do, but that was 
all. His manners, never impolite, were taciturn, 



286 THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH. 



and when he came to the office it was barely a 
' good morning. ' But now he seems to have sud- 
denly waked up, and is throwing himself into his 
work with an enthusiasm that is delightful to see ; 
and he is so very pleasant. It is really a pleasure 
to have him come in, and his ' good morning ' is a 
real refreshment. I never saw such a change in a 
boy. I can't make out what has come over him." 

"Well, Mr. M., I can tell you all about it. My 
boy has recently been converted — born again; and 
what you have noticed is the fruit of the Spirit 
working out in his life." 

The worldly minded man of business, who was 
not a Christian, looked puzzled for a moment, and 
then said : " I don't know anything about what you 
call the new birth and being converted, but I know 
that your boy is wonderfully changed in the last 
few months, and is a great delight to us all in the 
office." 

May this story be blessed by the Holy Spirit 
unto the salvation of some of you who stand in 
the same place where this boy stood! Your life 
needs the divine tonic of a hope from heaven that 
shall awaken you to do the best which, by the help 
of the grace of God, it is possible for you to do. 
Yield your heart to that divine inspiration now! 



THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 



" For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died 
for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will 
one die : for peradventure for a good man some would even 
dare to die. But God commendeth his own love toward 
us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. M 
—Rom. v. 6-8 (Rev. Ver.). 

Ckedentials stand for a great deal in our mod- 
ern life. An ambassador goes from the court of 
his native land to the seat of government in some 
distant empire, and is received with all honor be- 
cause of the credentials he bears. A man comes 
into a business house, and on the faith which is 
put in the credentials he carries, business transac- 
tions of great moment are discussed and deter- 
mined with him. The Scriptures set forth the 
credentials of the love of God in Jesus Christ. 
There certainly can be no more interesting subject, 
for our destiny must forever hang on the disposi- 
tion of God's heart toward us. John, who was so 
near to Christ and whose heart was so susceptible 
to divine teaching, declares that " God is love" in 
the very essence of his being. And Paul assures 

us that love is one of the three graces of the soul 

287 



288 THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 



that is to abide when all else passes away. The 
poet has Scriptural authority to sing : 

" They sin who tell us love can die ; 
With life all other passions fly, — 

All others are but vanity. 
In heaven ambition can not dwell, 
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell ; 
Earthly, these passions of the earth, 
They perish where they had their birth, 

But love is indestructible. 
Its holy flame forever burneth : 
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. 
Too oft on earth a troubled guest, 
At times deceived, at times oppressed, 

It here is tried and purified, 
Then hath in heaven its perfect rest. 
It serve th here with toil and care 
But the harvest-time of love is there." 

Our text declares that God's love has gone forth 
in sacrifice and service with all the divine gracious- 
ness of the heaven from whence it came. 

It is hard to find illustrations that will faintly 
suggest the depth and strength of the love of 
Christ, even in a world where love is so great a 
factor. A touching incident occurred recently in 
Poland. A peasant and his wife, residing in a vil- 
lage near Warsaw, had gone to attend a wedding at 
a neighboring village. It became very cold during 
the night, and they were unable to get back until 



THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 289 



morning. They had left their dwelling in the care 
of two little boys, one about six years of age, and 
his brother, two years younger. It appears that 
near nightfall these two boys had gone out to 
amuse themselves in the falling snow. During the 
time they were playing, the front door had become 
so frozen in its place that on their return they were 
unable to open it and gain access to their home. 
They could not endure the severe cold, and were 
frozen to death. When the bodies of the little vic- 
tims to their parents' carelessness and the bitter 
night were found, it was noticed that the elder had 
made, in tender solicitude, every effort to save the 
younger. He had taken off his shoes and put 
them over the felt shoes of his little brother, 
leaving himself barefooted, and had clasped 
him to his bosom in a rigid embrace. All had 
been in vain. They both lay in the stronger em- 
brace of death, their cheeks covered with frozen 
tears. 

Of course no one could contemplate such self- 
sacrifice as that practised by the heroic elder 
brother without the most heartfelt admiration; 
and yet it was his brother for whom he was doing 
it, who all his little life, no doubt, had been full of 
comfort and sunshine to him. It was, after all, 
only love responding back to love again. "But 
God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, 
19 



290 THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 



while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 
Was there ever love like that? 

Henry Morehouse, the English preacher, says 
that when he was at home, in Manchester, in his 
boyhood, their family consisted of two brothers, 
two sisters, and the father — the mother having 
died. They were poor people, and his brother 
was a bad boy, a prodigal, and they could not get 
him to work in the mill. 

One of the sisters said to her father : " Father, 
I will tell thee what thee ought to do with our 
John; turn him into the street." 

"Why?" asked the father. 

"Why," she said, "see how good we all are, and 
how bad he is; he is a disgrace to us. Turn him 
away." 

Christmas Day came, and the family, including 
the wayward boy, were together. The old man 
read a chapter and prayed. Then, hoping the 
occasion would make her tender, he turned around 
to the daughter and said : " Well, what are we to 
do with thy brother now?" 

But her heart was hard against him, she felt 
shamed and disgraced by him, and her reply was : 
"Put him in the street." 

Then the old man turned to one of the friends 
who had been with them at their Christmas din- 
ner, and put the question to him. He said he did 



THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 291 



not like to interfere, but he thought it might do 
him good to turn him out for a while. The old 
man left his chair, with the tears streaming down 
his face, and went across the room and put his 
arms around the bad boy's neck and said: "John, 
thy sister and brother and friend say I should turn 
thee out ; but I am thy poor old father, and I w T ill 
never put thee in the street, my boy." 

The wicked son, who had stood out against 
everything else with hard heart, melted at the 
father's love. It was the means of his giving his 
heart to Christ, and he became a noble preacher of 
the Gospel. 

Oh, all the world may turn against you, but God 
has commended his love to you in following you 
while you were a sinner; tho you have slighted 
him, and grieved him, and crucified Jesus Christ 
afresh, and put his name to an open shame, yet 
still he seeks after you to save you. 

William Dawson, a Yorkshire farmer, who be- 
came a famous soul-winner, had often made the 
public declaration that there was no man so far 
gone in London that Christ would not receive him. 
One day a young lady called on him and said : 

* I heard you say once that there was no man so 
far gone in London that Christ would not receive 
him. Did you mean it?" 

"Yes," he said. 



292 THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 



"Well," she said, "I have found a man who says 
he is so bad that the Lord will not have anything 
to do with him. Will you go and see him?" 

He said : " I will be glad to go." 

She took him to a brick building in a narrow 
street; the sick man was in the fifth story. She 
said: "You had better go in alone." 

He found there in that lonely garret, on a heap 
of old straw, a man who was evidently very sick. 
Mr. Dawson spoke a few kind words to him, and 
wanted to know if he should not call his friends. 

The dying man said : " You are mistaken in the 
person." 

"Why so?" 

"I have no friends on earth." 

Ah, how the devil does deceive men. He tells a 
man that the way to be popular and have many 
friends is to be careless about God and righteous- 
ness, and not to be too conscientious ; but if a man 
goes on serving him, the time comes when the 
friends disappear. 

"Well," said Mr. Dawson, "you have a friend 
in Christ" ; and he told him how Jesus loved and 
pitied him, and would save him. He read here 
and there a paragraph from this great treasury 
book of kindness and love which the Bible is, and 
then tenderly prayed with him. 

As the good man prayed, the light of hope from 



THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 293 



the Word of God began to break into his dark 
soul, and his heart went out toward those against 
whom he had so deeply sinned. He said : " If my 
father would only forgive me, I could die happy." 
"Who is your father?" 

He told him, and Mr. Dawson said : " I will go 
and see him." 

"No," the sick man said, in despair; "he has 
cast me off." 

But William Dawson was not the man to give up 
the trail when he had once got on the track of the 
possible salvation of a soul, and so he persisted 
and got the father's address, and said : " I will go." 

He went to a fashionable part of the West End 
of London, and rang the bell of the mansion where 
the father lived. A servant in livery came to the 
door, and showed him into the parlor. In a few 
moments the merchant came in. Mr. Dawson 
said to him : " You have a son by the name of Jo- 
seph." 

The merchant gave a start, and, flushing with 
anger, replied : " No, sir ; if you have come to talk 
to me about that worthless vagabond, you shall 
leave the house. I have disinherited him." 

Mr. Dawson said : " He will not be your boy by 
night; but he will be as long as he lives." 

The proud man's face softened, and in a husky 
voice he said: "Is my boy sick?" 



294 THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 



" Yes, he is dying. I do not ask you to help 
bury him. I will attend to that ; but he wants you 
to forgive him, and then he will die in peace." 

Ah, what a poor thing is all our pride, and all 
our show of self-will, when once the heart is 
touched! The tears trickled down the cheeks of 
the father who had been so angry only a moment 
ago, and he sobbed out : " Does Joseph want me 
to forgive him? I would have forgiven him long 
ago if I had known that." 

In a few moments they were in a carriage. 
They went to the house where the boy was ; and 
as they ascended the filthy stairs the father 
groaned: "Did you find my boy here? I would 
have taken him to my heart if I had known 
this." 

The boy cried, when his father came in : " Can 
you forgive me all my past sins?" 

The father bent over him, his tears falling like 
rain, and kissed him, and said : " I would have for- 
given you long ago." And he added: "We must 
get you down-stairs into the carriage and take you 
home. " 

But the dying man shook his head. " I am too 
sick — I am near the end — but I can die happy 
now. I believe that God for Christ's sake has for- 
given me." 

The young man told the father of the Savior's 



THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 295 



love; and then, his head lying upon his father's 
bosom, he breathed his last in peace. 

If a proud, self-willed human father could for- 
give like that, how much more confidently you 
may come to the heavenly Father, the very essence 
of whose heart is love, and who is always seeking 
our good. 

And yet it is not possible for even God to bring 
to us the comfort of forgiveness and salvation ex- 
cept as we repent of and confess our sins. I think 
the sweetest promise in all the Bible for most peo- 
ple is the one which says: "As one whom his 
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." But a 
mother can not comfort, oftentimes, without repen- 
tance and confession. Here is a wide-awake, irre- 
pressible, jolly boy of thirteen, whose mother dis- 
covers him in the dreariest corner of the most 
unfrequented spot about the grounds. The world 
is evidently very dark to the boy at the present 
moment. The forlorn, utterly miserable look on 
his face bears abundant witness to that. Suddenly 
the mother comes upon the lad. 

"Frank, did you hurt Stella?" she questions. 

"Yes; but, mother, I didn't mean to." 

"Then come and tell her so." 

"Oh, .but, mother, I didn't mean to," remon- 
strates the boy. 

"Then come and tell her so," the mother re- 



296 THE CREDENTIALS OF LOVE. 



peats, in a tone which, the boy knows means just 
what it says. The mother is inexorable. Her 
love is too wise to allow anything else. Reluc- 
tantly the boy obeys. Five minutes later he is 
one of the gayest of the crowd. The forlorn, mis- 
erable feeling is all gone. His mother has effec- 
tually comforted him. 

So, with all the tenderness of a mother-heart, 
God is seeking to comfort some of you who are 
here now; but unless you will break down your 
self-will before him, repent of your sins, and con- 
fess them, and confess Christ as your Savior, even 
the mother-heart of divine tenderness can not com- 
fort you or save you. 



ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 



" O wretched man that I am ! Who shall deliver me out 
of the body of this death?"— Bom. vii. 24 (Rev. Ver.). 

" There is therefore now no condemnation to them that 
are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of 
death."— Bom. viii. 1, 2 (Rev. Ver.). 

These are terribly earnest sentences uttered by 
an earnest man. There is always hope for a man 
who is in earnest. Christ felt in his day that 
there was much more hope for the publicans and 
harlots, the outbreaking, shameful sinners, than 
there was for the Pharisees and scribes, who had 
lost the energy of life and the earnestness out of 
their souls. 

Nobody is in a greater danger of eternal over- 
throw and defeat than the man or woman who goes 
along the way of life living only in the present, 
indifferent and thoughtless about the things of the 
highest importance. The man who realizes that 
he is a sinner, who has struggled to get away from 
his sins and found them hanging like a burden on 
his back — a horrid burden that might be compared 

to a dead body, which he loathes, and from which 

297 



298 ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 

he has no power in himself to escape — is in a hope- 
ful condition, because you do not need to argue 
with him to convince him that he is a sinner ; but 
the people who are in greatest danger are those 
whose sins seem to them only mistakes or blunders 
to be apologized for. "When Paul came to see 
down into the depths of his heart, he called him- 
self with all honesty the chief of sinners, tho he 
had kept the ten commandments, so far as they 
affected his outward conduct and morality, from 
his youth up, and says that touching the right- 
eousness that is in the law he was blameless. Do 
not for a moment congratulate yourself that you 
are not a sinner against God and living daily un- 
der condemnation of the law of God, because your 
sins are not so outbreaking and disgraceful as 
. those which are generally held up for rebuke. It 
is not the poisonous gas that smells the worst 
which is the most dangerous to human life. Sewer 
gas of the worst sort has no odor; and the most 
poisonous exhalations are only perceptible by 
their deadly effects. 

Alexander Maclaren says that Paul thought 
himself the chief of sinners not because he had 
broken the commandments, but because through 
all the respectability and morality of his early life 
there ran this streak — an alienation of heart, in the 
pride of self-confidence, from God, and an igno- 



ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 299 



ranee of his own wretchedness and need. The 
deep universal sin does not lie in the indulgence 
of passions or the breach of moralities, but in 
living a life of indifference to God, refusing to 
the Christ who died to redeem you your open 
friendship and willing service. Tho you have 
kept every moral requirement from your birth 
until now, yet if the Scripture accusation is 
true concerning you, that "the God in whose 
hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, 
thou hast not glorified," that is enough, if you 
could only see it in its true light, to brush 
away all the respectabilities and proprieties 
and worldly graces, and cause you, looking at 
the black reality of rebellion against the good 
God, to wail out: "0 wretched man that I 
am, who shall deliver me out of the body of 
this death?" 

The work of salvation is quick when you come 
to recognize your sins and break down your will 
in complete humility before the mercy-seat. A 
little boy had once been attending a revival meet- 
ing like this, and he went home to his mother one 
evening and said : " Mother, John J ones is under 
conviction and seeking for peace 5 but he will not 
find it to-night, mother." 

"Why, William?" said she. 

"Because he's only down on one knee, mother, 



300 ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 

and he never will get peace until lie is down on 
both knees." 

That boy had found a vein of eternal truth. 
Salvation never can come to us without obedience 
to God. When we have lost faith in ourselves, 
have ceased to apologize for our sins, have given 
up all hope of a compromise, and have made an 
unconditional surrender of our hearts and our 
wills to Christ, then the deadly handicap of sin 
will be taken away. We have nothing at all to 
offer as merit for ourselves. A man who has 
nothing but a dead body tied on his back is not in 
a position to dictate terms. It is not justice he 
wants, but mercy. 

In the days when the first Napoleon was all- 
powerful in France, a little girl of fourteen years 
came alone to the gate of the palace. Her tears 
and pleadings melted the heart of the porter, and 
he let her in. She went from one room to an- 
other, till she found her way to the hall through 
which she learned Napoleon and his officers were 
soon to pass. When he appeared, she threw her- 
self at his feet, and with all her soul in her voice 
cried : " Pardon, sire ! Pardon for my father !" 

"What is your name?" inquired the emperor. 

"My name is Lajolia," she said; and with flow- 
ing tears added, " but, sire, my father is doomed 
to die." 



ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 301 



"Ah, young lady," replied Napoleon, "I can do 
nothing for you. It is the second time in which 
your father has been found guilty of treason 
against the state." 

"Alas!" exclaimed the poor girl, "I know it, 
sire; but I do not ask for justice — I implore 
pardon. I beseech you, forgive, oh, forgive my 
father!" 

Napoleon's lips trembled, and, hard as he often 
was, his eyes filled with tears. After a momen- 
tary struggle of feeling, he gently took the hand 
of the young girl, and said : " Well, my child, for 
your sake I will pardon your father." 

So the only cry appropriate to the lips of a sin- 
ner against God is for mercy, for forgiveness. 

I call your attention to the completeness, the 
abundance of salvation in Jesus Christ. When 
once a man surrenders his will to Christ, and lays 
down his body of death at the foot of the cross, he 
steps out into an experience where there is no con- 
demnation, but a spirit of freedom and gladness. 
Christ is able to give us perfect release. 

A little girl had once been frightened by hear- 
ing the talk of older people about the power and 
vicious spirit of Satan. On the first opportunity 
she said to her father: "Is Satan bigger than 
me?" 

"Yes," replied her father. 



302 ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 



"Is he bigger than you?" 

"Ah, yes," was the sad reply. 

"And is Satan bigger than Jesus Christ?" 

"No." 

"Well, then," said the little girl, brightening 
up, "I don't care a rap for him!" 

Thank God ! we may have the strength of Jesus 
Christ added to our own, and that will turn the 
saddest defeat into the most glorious victory. If 
we turn from our sins with repentance, abhorring 
them, and yield ourselves to be the willing friends 
of Christ, he will not only relieve us from the sins 
of the past, and from the wicked appetites, the un- 
holy passions, and the spirit of rebellion against 
God, which are like a body of death, but with the 
most gracious love he will bestow upon us the 
honor of his own name, the badge of his affection. 

When Napoleon III. was at the height of his 
career, he conceived the idea of bestowing the 
cross of the Legion of Honor upon Rosa Bonheur, 
the famous painter, but he was fearful that the 
popular judgment might condemn him for grant- 
ing it to a woman. Finally he fell upon a happy 
expedient. Going from home for an excursion, he 
left his wife, the empress, as regent. From the 
imperial residence at Fontainebleau it was only a 
short distance to the little village of By, where the 
artist lived and worked. One day, entirely unan- 



ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 303 



nounced, the empress entered the studio where 
Rosa Bonheur was at work. She rose, abashed, 
to receive her distinguished visitor, who threw her 
arms about her neck and kissed her. The em- 
press remained but a few moments, and it was not 
until after she had gone that the artist discovered 
that, as the royal visitor had given her the kiss, 
she had pinned upon her blouse the cross of the 
Legion of Honor ! 

So it is, broken down by sin, thinking most of 
the body of death from which he would escape, a 
poor sinner comes to Christ, and the Savior 
throws his arms about his neck, and not only his 
sins pass away, but in all the years to come he 
wears the badge of Christ's royal name, and is 
honored with communion and fellowship with him 
who is his King and his Lord. 

Many of you who hear me know enough about 
Christ and about the Gospel to be saved, but you 
wait and wait, as tho you expected some flood 
of supernatural influence would rise about you and 
sweep you off your feet and carry you against 
your will into the kingdom of God. You may be 
very sure that such a thing will never happen. If 
it should it would do you no good, for it would not 
change your character. The first move must come 
from you. God has done everything he can do for 
your salvation, until you yourself act in obedience 



304 ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 

to him. The reason you do not move is because 
you are chained by your sins. You must break 
those chains so far as to accept Christ, or you will 
be lost forever. You are like boats that are fast- 
ened to the shore — there is no use pulling at the 
oars until the chain is unfastened. Some of you 
are like Herod, who was bound by his unholy lust 
for the wicked woman who lived with him, and 
tho the greatest preacher of repentance that 
ever lived thundered his warning in his ears, and 
wrought upon his judgment and emotion, he was 
left unsaved. Some of you are in lethargy. You 
are like ships becalmed at sea. You get nowhere. 
If you would only act, if you would only obey the 
Lord Jesus, the breeze of the Holy Spirit brought 
by that obedience would fill your sails and you 
would make progress toward the divine life. 

A young man of northern New York was lost for 
two days and nights in the wilds of the Adiron- 
dacks. Just as the searchers and his family were 
ready to give him up as dead, he was found in a 
half-dazed condition. He had started out in the 
morning bear-hunting, expecting to return at 
night. When darkness fell he was many miles 
from home, weary, and faint with hunger. He 
made himself a bed of balsam boughs, and lay 
down and fell asleep beside a fire of pine knots. 
Long after midnight he was awakened .by a 



ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 305 



strange sound. He leaped to his feet and caught 
up his gun. He saw a pair of yellow eyes peer- 
ing at him from the shadows, and he raised his 
gun and fired. Having scared away the panther, 
he threw more pine knots on the fire and fell 
asleep again. When day dawned he awoke, 
chilled to the bone and very hungry. He won- 
dered how far he was from home, and struck man- 
fully out, soon leaving his camp far behind. 
About the middle of the afternoon he saw a thin 
column of smoke rising in the distance, from a 
clump of balsam firs. The sight enthused the lost 
boy. "I knew I'd run across some cabin if I kept 
going long enough," he said joyfully to himself. 
For an hour the boy walked with quickened pace. 
Then he came upon his camp of the night before. 
The dying fire was sending up a faint pencil of 
smoke. With despair he sank wearily down upon 
his couch of balsam boughs. He had done what 
many persons have done before him when lost 
in a wilderness — simply wandered about in a 
circle, eventually coming back to his starting- 
place. 

The prospect of spending another night in the 

great woods positively appalled him. Slowly and 

painfully he struggled to his feet, gathered a fresh 

supply of pine knots, and threw some of them on 

the fire. He huddled close to the blazing knots, 
20 



306 ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 



and tried to keep back the pangs of hunger that 
were driving him half mad. 

The next morning he set out again. He stag- 
gered about the forest all day, until toward eve- 
ning he sank down upon a big rock and gave him- 
self up for lost. He was beginning to feel 
strangely faint. Suddenly the crack of a rifle 
pierced the stillness of the forest. He listened 
intently. The shot was repeated. Hope began to 
grow in his heart. Possibly that was a signal 
from somebody looking for him. He raised his 
own gun in the air and fired. Help was at hand, 
and in less than half an hour he was in the hands 
of his friends and his troubles were over. 

Does not a good part of this story illustrate 
your experience? You have wandered away from 
God. You are lost in the mountains of sin. You 
have wandered about in your thinking on the sub- 
ject, and have had many noble impulses, many 
longings to live a better life, but you have come 
back again to your old camp of inaction. Tho 
you have been often under conviction of sin, you 
have gone round and round in a circle and gotten 
nowhere, and have come no nearer to salvation by 
all your thinking. 

My friends, we are searching for you in the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord. We are a search- 
ing party under the direction of your Savior, and 



ESCAPE FROM A FATAL HANDICAP. 307 



it is my gracious privilege, through God's mercy, 
to signal to you that help is at hand. Will you 
not signal us in return? That lost boy might have 
sat there on the rock in the forest until he starved 
to death, had he not signaled back to those that 
were searching for him to save him. So all 
heaven is searching for you. Christ has promised 
that, on the first signal from you, he will come to 
your relief. But you are a free moral agent, and 
he can not and will not break down your will. 
The first move now must come from you. The 
greatest tragedy of human life is that a man by his 
own inaction may make it impossible even for the 
Almighty God to save him. I appeal to you not 
so to sin against your own soul ! 



REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 



" Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth 
unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he 
that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal 
life."— Gal. vi. 7, 8 (Eev. Ver.). 

A man holds his destiny in his own hands just 
as surely as a farmer decides what his harvest 
shall be by the seed which he sows in the spring- 
time. He who sows barley must not expect oats ; 
he who scatters thistles must not look for wheat ; 
if he does, he will be disappointed. Every intel- 
ligent farmer expects to reap what he sows. He 
knows that the quantity of the harvest will depend 
on some things that are beyond his control; the 
amount of rain and sunshine will have something 
to do with that. But whether the harvest be great 
or small, the quality of it he decides when, look- 
ing over his fields, he determines what shall be 
sown. 

This analogy holds good in the spiritual world. 
A man can not sow vulgarity and expect to reap a 

pure mind. A man can not sow evil imaginings 

308 



REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 309 



and reap noble conversation and conduct. He can 
not sow hardness of heart and reap a brotherly 
soul. He can not sow neglect and indifference of 
Christ and reap divine fellowship or a good con- 
science. The quantity of the harvest may vary 
according to a man's associations or gifts, which 
tend to develop one phase or another of his char- 
acter, but the quality of the harvest every one of 
us absolutely controls by the seeds of thought and 
conduct which we are sowing in our own hearts or 
lives. Every one may rest assured that his eternal 
salvation hinges upon his own will. For whether 
we reap sorrow or joy, whether of the flesh we reap 
corruption or of the Spirit reap eternal life, it will 
not be our father's or mother's, it will not be our 
neighbor's, neither will it be God's harvest that 
we reap — every man must reap of his own sowing. 
God does not desire the death of any, but rather 
that all should turn and live. No man can say 
when he is tempted that it is of God, for God 
tempts no man to sin. There used to be a good 
deal of quibbling about the expressions in the 
Book of Exodus which state that God hardened the 
heart of Pharaoh. God did not harden the heart 
of Pharaoh except as he hardens the ripening ker- 
nel of wheat when it is exposed to the sun. Pha- 
raoh had every opportunity of salvation. Moses 
came before him as the messenger of God, and 



310 REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 



demanded in the name of the Lord that he let 
Israel go, and Pharaoh's great sin was in that first 
refusal to the demand of God. That made easier 
his next refusal, and the next; and tho on the oc- 
casion of every plague that came upon him and 
his people he was convicted anew of his sin and 
disposed to relent, yet every time it became easier 
for him to harden his heart and refuse to surrender 
his will to God, because the restraints of the grace 
of God had less and less effect on him. Pharaoh 
sowed obstinate self-will and he reaped the same. 
When once that seed was in the soil, it took no 
special decree of God to harden his heart, as the 
farmer needs not to sow his field again after it is 
once rooted. The seed of rebellion which Pha- 
raoh sowed when he first refused to yield to the 
Lord brought up a harvest after its own kind. 
And so the old Egyptian monarch went on from 
one degree of wicked obstinacy to another, till at 
last even the slaying of the first-born from the 
palace to the hovel throughout all the land of 
Egypt was not enough to break down his rebel- 
lious will, and he followed the children of God 
until the waves of the Eed Sea swept above his 
hosts, a historical witness to all the generations to 
come of the truth of the statement that " whatso- 
ever a man soweth that shall he also reap." God 
was just as good to Pharaoh as he will be to us. 



HEAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 311 



He had a fair chance, and will never dare to stand 
up in the day of judgment, after all the warnings 
and rebukes and invitations which God sent to 
him, and say : " I did not have a fair chance." He 
will be compelled to wail : " My condemnation is 
just!" 

This same hardening of heart is going on in 
some of you now. When you began to stifle its 
protests, you began to sow the smothering of con- 
science, and with some this has gone on until 
conscience has become very feeble. Every time 
you refuse to heed its remonstrance against wrong- 
doing, your power to stifle your conscience is in- 
creased manyfold, and so the harvest you reap is 
a smothered conscience. And if you continue, the 
time will come when conscience will become silent 
and you will go recklessly into sin without alarm, 
scarcely knowing that sin is sin — calling good evil, 
and evil good; but remember, if you sow a smoth- 
ered conscience you will reap a remorse that all 
eternity will not be able to silence ! 

This sowing to the flesh referred to in the text 
means the sowing to your passions and your appe- 
tites, so that you indulge yourself in a sinful way. 
And what a man sows in that way he reaps, and 
the harvest is corruption. But let us understand 
that no soul is ever lost through any arbitrary de- 
cree of God. It is only that a man reaps his own 



312 REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 



sowing. You may illustrate this by any phase of 
your soul life. Suppose you are moved by the 
Holy Spirit to accept Christ as your Savior ; you 
resist the call, and in order to do so effectually 
throw yourself into some giddy pleasure, or into 
irreligious associations, or, it may be, only im- 
merse yourself the deeper into your studies or 
business, hoping thereby to rid yourself of the dis- 
turbing call of the Spirit of God. In doing that 
you have sown resistance to God's Spirit. Hav- 
ing refused the Holy Spirit once, it is easier for 
you to do so the second time, and easier the next, 
and the next, until you reap a harvest that finally 
grieves away the Spirit of God, and it can be said 
of you: "He is joined unto his idols, let him 
alone." 

Again, suppose you are tempted to do some- 
thing which you know is a sin against God. You 
yield to the temptation, tho the protest of your 
hitherto pure conscience makes it hard for you. 
That is a seed sown, and it is much easier to com- 
mit that sin again than if you had not yielded at 
first ; and every time you yield another stone goes 
off the wall of your resistance, until after a while 
there is no wall left, and sinful indulgences troop 
into your heart and life over a dusty* path worn 
deep by oft-repeated wickedness. 

Take an illustration of another kind. You were 



REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 313 



brought up to pray at your mother's knee, and 
perhaps when you came away from home she gave 
you a Bible and you promised to read a chapter 
every day and maintain your habits of worship; 
but you are in a hurry some day, and you omit 
your Bible reading. It troubles you all day and 
you say to yourself : " Mother's gentle heart would 
be grieved if she knew it. I'm sorry I didn't take 
the time, for her sake at least, to read it." You 
miss, too, the influence of that pure glimpse into 
the spiritual value of things which your Bible 
reading has heretofore given you to look at and 
study at moments of ease during the day. That 
omission is a seed. The next time you are in a 
hurry and fail to read your chapter, you think 
less about it, and so you go on until the harvest is 
that your Bible goes to the bottom of your trunk 
or to the topmost shelf of your bookcase. Having 
left off your Bible reading, it is easy to omit the 
prayer; and prayer omitted a few times reaps a 
harvest of worldliness, until the result is that you 
are coming to live as tho there were no God to 
whom you can pray, as tho there were no Bible 
with its inspiration for youth, with its comfort 
for sorrow, with its pillow of promise for the dy- 
ing, with its Christ and forgiveness for the sinner, 
and its hope of eternal life. And so, through the 
whole history of a man's life, if he shall reject 



314 REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 



God and yield himself to sin, it is harvest after 
harvest until the great harvest of punishment at 
last is only that a man is filled with his own way 
and permitted to reap his own sowing. 

This makes the Bible warnings of a coming 
punishment for sin very simple and natural, but 
very terrible. Hardened sinners have been wont 
to sneer and scoff at the words of Christ which de- 
scribe the final estate of the impenitent soul as 
"the outer darkness" where there is "gnashing of 
teeth," or picture the thirsty soul in a gulf of fire 
crying for " a drop of water" to cool his tongue, or 
portray the fire that never can be quenched and 
the gnawing worm that never dies ; but I am sure 
that all these illustrations taken together are not 
so terrible as this simple statement that a sinful 
soul, a wicked life, shall reap its own sowing and 
feed upon it forever. All you have to do is to let 
this wickedness go on ; let a man reap what he 
has sown in sin, and there is a harvest of remorse 
forever to be gathered. A man "sows to the 
flesh," says Paul, and "of the flesh he reaps cor- 
ruption." That is, a man tampers with and fat- 
tens and feeds the sinful lusts of his body — these 
are seeds he sows ; they have their wicked coun- 
terpart in his mind, in his imagination. These 
lusts and appetites and passions bear harvest, and 
they come back on the man who sowed them with 



REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 315 



cravings and gnawings that demand of him ever 
fresh gratification. Now the solemn word of 
Christ is that a man will be in the next world just 
what he is here, except that theie he will not have 
the chance to repent and change, but must go on 
reaping what he has sown here. Can you think of 
a more terrible punishment than that? Here is a 
drunkard who has sown an appetite for strong 
drink, and he has gathered his harvest and sown it 
again until even in this world he has come to the 
place where he reaps a harvest of agony untold. 
Can you imagine a more terrible hell than that a 
man shall go on reaping a harvest like that? For- 
ever thirsting for strong drink, its tiger-like fierce- 
ness forever craving, and yet never satisfied? Be- 
fore such a picture Dives in hell longing for a 
drop of water to cool his tongue seems tame. And 
so you may go on through the whole list. Let 
the envious man just keep his envy and be shut up 
to live with it forever — his envy always burning 
all peace out of his heart. Let the jealous man 
be forever jealous. Let the revengeful soul harbor 
his malice, nursing it to keep it warm, seeking for 
a chance to get his revenge upon his victim. Let 
the lustful soul be forever planning and scheming 
for the gratification of unholy passion. Let the 
victim of greed, with the money-fever in his blood, 
never lose the heat out of his veins that makes 



316 REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 



him cry out constantly for more, and more, and 
yet never attain his desired end. That is, let 
every sinner reap his own sowing— and you have a 
fire in each soul that never will be quenched; you 
have an undying worm gnawing its agonizing 
way, that never ends, through the quivering heart- 
strings. God save a man from a doom like that ! 

And, thank God ! that ic what he wants to do ! 
For Jesus Christ came to save sinners — not save 
you in your sins, but to save you from your sins. 
It is God's desire that the Holy Spirit shall plow 
your heart for a new sowing; that the old growths 
of sin and wickedness shall be uprooted — not 
chopped down, with the roots remaining in the 
soil of your soul, but dug out — so that your heart 
may be tilled like a garden; and the heavenly Gar- 
dener will sow in that clean heart, in that renewed 
spirit, the seeds of love, and hope, and faith, and 
meekness, and gentleness, and reverence, and pa- 
tience, until your soul shall become a flower gar- 
den, fragrant with the graces of Christian life. 

Blessed be God, goodness is as contagious as 
badness ! The seeds of righteousness will bear as 
abundant a harvest as the seeds of evil. If you 
will sow now the seed of repentance and faith, you 
shall grow a harvest of tenderness of heart, of con- 
fidence in God, of love for your brother, and of joy 
of soul ; and as the seeds of goodness are sown in 



REAPING OUR OWN SOWING. 317 



your heart, gracious harvests shall wave there that 
will not only make your own life glad and peace- 
ful, but make you a great blessing to all who come 
in contact with you. 

As these meetings have gone on, and you have 
listened to the joyous testimonies of some of these 
saintly men and women, the fragrance of whose 
lives is "like ointment poured forth," I know you 
have said to yourself : " When I get to be an old 
man or an old woman, and my hair is white, and 
eternity can not be far off, I want to be a man or a 
woman like that." Then, I beg you, sow the 
same kind of seed. Such a harvest of noble man- 
hood and holy womanhood does not come by acci- 
dent. Behind these ripening shocks is more than 
half a century of devout Christian experience. 
They gave their hearts to God in youth. All their 
lives they have been sowing the seeds of faith, 
and hope, and love, and obedience — and the result 
is the harvest which it so delights you to behold. 
If you want to be good old men and lovable and 
happy old women, you must prepare for such a 
harvest. Begin here and now by yielding your 
hearts to the Christ who has been and is their 
Savior and Lord. 



DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL 
DAYS. 



" Having been reminded of the unfeigned faith that is 
in thee ; which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and 
thy mother Eunice ; and, I am persuaded, in thee also. " — 
2 Tim. i. 5 (Rev. Ver.). 

Paul gives ns here a glimpse into the back- 
ground of Timothy's life. The background of a 
great picture is often important. It is the womb 
of mystery out of which the deeds portrayed on 
the canvas have come. Every splendid deed, 
every noble man, every holy woman have behind 
them a background of hereditary influence which 
is always interesting. If I were a great painter, 
there is one picture I would like to paint as my 
contribution to religious art. It would be the pic- 
ture of Kensington Common, with a crowd of 
twenty thousand people gathered to hear John 
Wesley, the mightiest religious leader of his cen- 
tury. I would paint the people by scores and 
hundreds on their knees in long rows, like a swath 
of grain fallen before the reaper, crying out to God 

for mercy and salvation under the spell of Wes- 

318 



DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 319 



ley's burning words. Yet it is not Wesley, nor 
the great audience, nor the repenting sinners, 
upon whom I would concentrate the interest in the 
picture, but on the figure of an old woman stand- 
ing behind the speaker, with hair as white as 
snow; a shining face, and eyes that pierce the veil 
of the eternities — the face of the prophetess she 
was — Susannah, the mother of the Wesleys. 

Everything that John Wesley ever was, humanly 
speaking, he owed to his mother. The father was 
dreamy and poetical, but never able to make a liv- 
ing. Susannah Wesley was both father and moth- 
er, teacher and priestess, to a family of nineteen 
children. John was a dull lad at first, and did not 
learn easily. He had the same kind of traits that 
many boys have— he could forget knowledge more 
rapidly than he could acquire it. She taught him 
the alphabet twenty times, that, to use her own 
language, "the nineteenth might not be in vain." 

Many a strong man who has done or is doing 
great work for humanity owes his power to the 
influence of some gentle mother whose name has 
never been known beyond the little community 
where she lived. Once when Daniel Webster, at 
the height of his fame, had been given a great re- 
ception in Boston, where the rich and great had 
been proud to do him homage and many an ele- 
gant lady had thrown bouquets of rarest flowers at 



320 DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 



his feet, as he turned to retire into his hotel a 
timid little girl paused before him and placed a 
bunch of old-fashioned garden pinks in his hand. 
At sight of these familiar flowers, and as their 
well-remembered fragrance filled the air, the old 
memories were stirred. Just such pinks used to 
grow in his mother's garden when he was a child. 
Instantly that sweet face of the loved mother came 
to his vision; her tender, gentle voice sounded 
once more in his ears. So overcome was he by 
the tide of memories which crowded into his heart, 
that he excused himself and went to his apart- 
ments alone. "Nothing in all my life," said he, 
"affected me like that little incident." Mary 
Clemmer had in her thought some circumstance 
like that when she sang : 

"From out the great world's rush and din 
There came a guest ; 
The inner court he entered in, 
And sat at rest. 

" Slow on the wild tide of affairs 
The gates were closed ; 
Afar the hungry host of cares 
At last reposed. 

" Then through the dim doors of the past, 
All pure of blame, 
Came boyish memories floating fast — 
His mother's name. 



DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 321 



" ' Ah ! all this loud world calls the best 
I'd give, ' he said, 
4 To feel her hand, on her dear breast 
To lean my head. 

"'I cry within the crowned day, 
That would be joy, 
Could she but bear me far away, 
Once more her boy. ' 

"Far out amid the earth's turmoils 
A strong man stands, 
Upheld in triumph and in toils 
By unseen hands. 

" But who may lift with subtle wand 
The masks we wear? 
I only know his mother's hand 
Is on his hair. 

"I only know through all life's harms, 
Through sin's alloy, 
Somehow, somewhere that mother's arms 
Will reach her boy. " 

No one can exaggerate the power of home influ- 
ence. To be born in a Christian home and to 
grow to manhood or womanhood in the midst of 
prayer and song and reverent love, is the sweetest 
gift God can bestow upon youth. Sir Walter 
Scott had his favorite seat in his garden put with- 
in earshot of his bailiff's cottage, because it was a 

devout Christian family and he delighted to hear 
21 



322 DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 

the sound when they sang the Psalms at morning 
and evening worship. There never was sweeter 
incense in this world than that which goes up in 
the home where parents and children together 
humbly and simply worship God. The hymns 
and Scripture learned in the home, and, above all, 
the confidence in God and the courage of the 
Christian faith that goes with it, will abide in the 
heart to rise again, even after years of wickedness, 
and make themselves felt as powerful factors in 
the life of those who have shared it. 

A very graphic and beautiful illustration of this 
vitality of youthful teachings is found in 8. E. 
Crockett's book, "The Men of the Moss Hags," in 
the account given of the little ones who were saved 
by the "Mother's Psalm." It was in a cruel and 
bloody time, and the hard soldiers of Westerha' 
had come upon a band of children, and the little 
cluster of Scotch bairns huddled together in fear. 
The cruel commander ordered them to kneel down 
to be shot, because the brave little souls would not 
tell where their fathers were hid. And then to 
taunt them, the cruel man cried out to them, 
"Bonny whigs ye air, to die without even a 
prayer. Put up a prayer this minute, for ye shall 
all die, every one of you." 

And a little boy made answer to him : " Sir, we 
can not pray, for we be too young to pray." 



DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 323 

" You are not too young to rebel, nor yet to die 
for it," was the brute-beast's reply. 

Then with that, a little girl held up her hand as 
if she were answering a teacher in a class. "An' 
if it please ye, sir," she said, "me and Alec canna 
pray, but we can sing, 6 The Lord's my Shepherd,' 
gin that will do. My mother learned it us afore 
she gaed awa'." And before any one could stop 
her she stood up like one that leads the singing in 
a kirk. 

"Stand up, Alec, my wee mannie," she said. 

Then all the bairns stood up. A hard soldier 
looking on declared it reminded him of Bethlehem 
and the night when Herod's troopers rode down 
to look for Mary's bonny Bairn. Then from the 
lips of babes and sucklings arose the quavering 
strains : 

"The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want. 
He makes me down to lie 
In pastures green ; He leadeth me 
The quiet waters by. " 

As they sang one of the troopers took out his 
pistols and began to sort and prime them, resolved 
to shoot down the leader of the band rather than 
see the little ones die with that Psalm on their 
lips. But there was no need, for as they sang he 
saw trooper after trooper turn away his head, for 
being Scottish bairns they had all learned that 



324 DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 

Psalm. The ranks shook. Man after man fell 
out, and he saw the tears dropping down their 
cheeks. Finally one of the hardest men among 
all the persecutors broke down. 

"Curse it, Westerha'," he cried, "I canna thole 
this langer." 

And at last, even Westerha' turned his bridle 
rein and rode away from off the bonnie holms of 
Shield hill, for the victory was to the bairns. 
And the trooper wondered what the thoughts of 
his chief were ; for he, too, had learned that Psalm 
at the knees of his mother. And as the troopers 
rode loosely up hill and down brae, broken and 
ashamed, the sound of those bairns' singing fol- 
lowed after them, and soughing across the fells 
came the words : 

"Yea, tho I walk in Death's dark vale, 
Yet will I fear none ill : 
For thou art with me ; and thy rod 
And staff me comfort still. " 

Then Westerha' swore a great oath, and put 
spurs in his horse, to get clear of the sweet sing- 
ing that was like the dagger of avenging justice in 
his heart. 

In this long campaign for souls which we have 
had together, nothing has pleased me more than 
the family altars which have been erected, and the 



DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 325 

husbands and wives who have been united in the 
service of the Lord, and are henceforth to join in 
a fellowship of worship and be united in their 
efforts to bring up their children to be, like Timo- 
thy, grounded in the faith of the Gospel. Many 
times it happens that a wife is left to bear alone 
all the burden of the instruction and training of 
the children in a religious way. I am sure there 
are some manly men who remain out of the church 
and let their wives go on carrying this double bur- 
den, who would take a different attitude if they 
could only clearly see how utterly unworthy of 
them is such a position. A sensible and intelli- 
gent man of the world was heard not long ago to 
make this statement concerning his wife, who had 
just given her heart to God and was seeking to 
brmg the spirit of Christianity into her home: 
"My wife is a professor of religion, and I am 
standing off to see what good it is going to do 
her." Could there be anything more mean and 
cowardly, more unmanly, than that? As the man 
remarked who overheard it, if his wife were row- 
ing a boat against a stiff current, and her life and 
the fate of his children depended on the result, he 
would not count it either wise or manly for him to 
sit on the bank of the stream and coolly pass judg- 
ment on the skill of her strokes. And yet, my 
brother, is that not what you are doing if, while 



326 DESTINY DECIDED IN YOUTHFUL DAYS. 

your wife is earnestly seeking to be a Christian, 
you refuse to give her your fellowship and sympa- 
thy, but view the church and her efforts with a 
critical eye? There are parents in this presence 
who are not Christians. You are throwing the 
silent influence of your daily life against Christ, 
and against the church, and setting an example of 
indifference to Christianity before your children, 
thus robbing them of the sweetest memories they 
ought to have — memories of faith and hope and 
prayer that would hallow and make sacred their 
childish days. 

Give your hearts to God now ! Make the Bible 
the book of counsel in your home. Bring rever- 
ence and worship to your fireside, and your chil- 
dren will rise up to call you blessed in all the 
years to come. 



THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE 
WORLD. 



" Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. " — 
1 Tim. i. 15 (Rev. Ver.). 

The most important embassy that was ever sent 

in connection with, the history of this world was 

the embassy of Jesus Christ from the court of 

heaven to the men and women of earth. He came 

from God to save us from our greatest trouble, 

which is our sin. We may know what Jesus 

Christ thinks of sin by the prophecy of Isaiah 

which he applied to himself in his first sermon at 

Nazareth: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon 

me ; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 

good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to 

bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to 

the captives, and the opening of the prison to them 

that are bound ; to proclaim the acceptable year of 

the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God ; to 

comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that 

mourn in Zion, to give unto them a garland for 

ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of 

327 



328 THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 

praise for the spirit of heaviness." And when the 
disciples of John the Baptist went to him from 
John's prison, desiring to know if he was indeed 
the Messiah or whether they should look for an- 
other, Jesus told them to go back to John in pris- 
on and give him his credentials. He said to them : 
" Tell John the things which ye do hear and see : 
the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the 
dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings 
preached to them." 

From these statements we know that Jesus 
Christ came to save sinners, because sin was mar- 
ring and destroying humanity as nothing else can. 
To his thought sin makes men poor. It takes from 
them the highest and noblest riches. It does not 
matter how many corner lots a man may own, or 
how large his bank account may be, if he has lost 
his peace with God, has laid up no treasures in 
heaven, and possesses no title to an inheritance in 
the life beyond, he is a poor man. Men may call 
him rich, as did the neighbors in the Gospel story 
of the old farmer, who had planned to pull down 
his barns and build greater and congratulate his 
soul upon the increase of his wealth. Men called 
him a rich man, but God called him a "fool"; and 
so, no matter how much wealth you have in this 
world, if you have no treasure in heaven, if you 



THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 329 

are a sinner against God — then, being only a ten- 
ant at the will of God in the things you have here, 
you are likely to be a pauper before to-morrow 
morning. They may bury you in a better coffin 
than they would ordinary paupers, but there will 
be no bank book in the pockets of your burial suit. 
Often when I stand at a funeral and look down on 
the body of a man dressed in his best clothes, I 
reflect that all his life long he has been careful 
when he went on a journey to have plenty of 
money in his pocket, and, if it were a long journey 
across the sea, a letter of credit ; and now, for the 
first time, he is going on a long journey with 
empty pockets. It is a very little nook of our 
lives in which earthly wealth is of any value. In 
the long eternal life only spiritual wealth counts, 
and that is where sin makes men poor. I have 
read of a band of thieves who lay in ambush for 
some miners who were coming home from the gold- 
fields, bringing their bags of dust and their nug- 
gets to market. And the thieves emptied the 
sacks of the gold and filled them up with worthless 
sand. Ah, that is what sin does for its victims ! It 
takes away a man's innocency, his reverence, his 
worshipful spirit, his trust in God, his faith in 
Jesus Christ, his title to heaven, and gives him in 
exchange bags of sand which have no purchasing 
power in the land to which he is going. No 



330 THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 

wonder Isaiah asks: "Wherefore do ye spend 
money for that which is not bread? and your labor 
for that which satisfieth not?" 

Not only does sin make men poor, but it makes 
them prisoners. The captives of sin are upon 
every side of us. Look where we will and we be- 
hold men and women who are held in awful bond- 
age by wicked habits. Men have said to me : "I 
would gladly be a Christian, but I am so wicked, 
my habits are so fastened on me, and I am so 
placed, that it would only be failure. I dare not 
make the attempt." Think of a man such a slave 
that he dare not even attempt to escape from his 
prison ! Oh, the prisoners of sin who are in this 
city! Men held by chains of drink — yes, and 
women, too, until the love of motherhood is lost 
out of the soul ! Souls held by chains of lust as 
black as Herod's, until their prison walls shut out 
the sunlight of hope, and dreams of escape are a 
thing of the past. Men bound by handcuffs of 
selfishness, and greed, and jealousy, and envy, and 
revenge ; who seek to break away again and again 
and fall back only the more hopeless captives of 
their sins. Ah, yes, not a man here will deny that 
sin makes prisoners of its victims. 

Sin breaks hearts. Every newspaper is full of 
the records of the broken hearts of the world. In 
their stories of divorce, and strife, and murder, 



THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 331 



and suicide, the daily newspapers present tin awful 
picture of the broken hearts whose miseries have 
come from sin ; and yet what they show us, com- 
pared to the great seething torrent of human agony 
rising from breaking hearts that is covered up 
and never comes to the public eye, is like Niagara's 
spray to its waters. Sin has broken the heart of 
mankind, and all about us men and women are 
walking with coffins in their breasts, wherein are 
buried their most sacred hopes. Ah, yes; sin 
breaks the heart ! 

I can not now tell you how sin makes men blind 
as to who their tyrant is, so that they hug their 
chains instead of turning from them with eager 
hearts to welcome the Deliverer. 

It was because of this horrid havoc of sin in the 
world, wasting and desolating the hearts of men, 
that Jesus Christ, leaving all the glory of heaven, 
came down to earth to save sinners. Thank God, 
the saying is faithful! Jesus not only came to 
save sinners, but he has been saving them ever 
since he came. He saved Paul, blasphemer, per- 
secutor, and Pharisee tho he was, and Paul de- 
clares that in saving him he saved "the chief 
of sinners"; for sin had so blinded him that he 
called evil good, and good evil, and boasted that 
he was doing the will of God when he was perse- 
cuting the disciples of Jesus to the very death ; yet 



332 THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 

he who came to save sinners saved him. He can 
save any man who will come unto him in humility 
and faith. The conditions are very simple— only 
to turn away from the sin that despoils you and 
accept of the salvation which he died to purchase 
in your behalf. 

Simply being sorry for our sins is no acceptance 
of salvation. We must be sorry in the same way 
as was the prodigal in Christ's story. He did not 
come home saying to his father, " I am hungry and 
ragged and dirty." The burden of his cry was: 
"I have sinned, and am unworthy." That is a 
plea that never will go unheeded in the ear of God. 
There is no virtue in being sorry for your sins ; 
the most wicked-hearted man in the world is sorry 
for his sin when he has been lassoed by the law 
and held for punishment. But real repentance is 
a sorrow for sin that turns a man's feet from its 
path, and leads him to the mercy-seat, where with 
humble heart he confesses his transgressions and 
pleads for forgiveness in Jesus's name. 

The Christ who came to save sinners saves them 
in the most gracious and loving way. Among the 
Orientals, when a man's debt has been paid either 
by himself or his friend, or when his creditor has 
taken pity on him because of his misfortune or 
his poverty and forgiven him the debt, it is the 
custom for the creditor to visit the house of the 



THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 333 



man who has owed him and nail the canceled bond 
over the door of the debtor, that everybody who 
passes by may see that the debt is paid. So when 
we repent of our sins and accept the salvation of 
Jesus Christ he pays our debts for us. Indeed, 
he has paid our debt already, but the canceled 
bond can never be nailed above our door until we 
accept it. 

I do not want you to fail to see that pivotal point 
in our text — "worthy of all acceptation." That 
the statement that Christ came to save sinners, and 
is saving sinners, is worthy, you all know. Day 
after day, for the past month, here at this altar 
men and women and boys and girls, all ages and 
conditions in life, have heard the message of sal- 
vation, and on accepting it have found it true. 
They declare that the half was never told them of 
the goodness of Christ. They bear testimony that 
their sins are forgiven ; that instead of a rebuking, 
stinging conscience, they now have peace with 
God that casts out all fear. It is a worthy saying. 
The one thing that remains is, " Have you accepted 
it?" Not, Do you believe it theoretically? Not, 
Are you an admirer of Christian civilization and 
in sympathy with Christianity in a dreamy sort of 
way? Neither, Have you accepted it so far that 
you expect some time in the future to avail your- 
self of the offer of mercy? I do not mean that. 



334 THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 

Have you accepted it? Suppose you are a young 
man and out of a position, and you have gone, day 
after day, seeking work and finding none. Little 
by little all the means that you had laid by are 
spent, and one after another you have pawned the 
things that you could spare until your overcoat is 
at the pawnbroker's, and you are down to the last 
point of being turned into the street. And as you 
go shivering about in a hopeless way, seeking to 
find a place where you may earn your bread, you 
meet a man who is well known in the community 
as an employer. You have known a great many 
others to be employed by him. They all report 
that he pays good wages, and that he is so kind 
and generous that it is a joy and a delight to be in 
his service. . And this man, so tried and trusted, 
offers you a good place. He says : " I do not know 
whether there will be any opening to-morrow or 
not, but to-day you can go to work ; and if you go 
to work to-day, and are faithful, you can stay as 
long as you live. I never turn off any of my 
hands. I will pay you when you are sick just the 
same as when you are well, and I will take care of 
you when you are old, but I want you now. To- 
morrow may be too late. There have been many 
that thought well about entering my employ and I 
have urged upon them to begin at once, but they 
put it off and died in poverty." Well, you listen 



THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 335 

to all this, but some strange and awful stupor 
holds you back, and you come to your landlord 
who has given you notice that you must go into 
the street in a week's time, and when he urges you 
to pay him you say : " Oh, don't bother about it. 
I have just met the best employer in the city and 
he has off ered me a place at good wages ; your bill 
will be all right." And the landlord says, "Did 
you accept it?" and you reply: "Well, no; I was 
tempted to, but I thought I would take my chances 
till to-morrow or the next day, or next week. I 
will see him again." Ah, you can not imagine 
yourself in such folly as that in the matters of 
every-day life, and yet that little allegory is a faint 
type of your folly when you neglect the salvation 
offered by him who came down from heaven to 
save sinners, and who does save every sinner that 
yields his heart to him. Christ has been saving 
your neighbors and acquaintances, and offers to 
save you, here and now, and yet you delay to ac- 
cept him. Others have delayed, and have died in 
the agonies of remorse, and yet when I urge upon 
you that "to-day is the day of salvation," and beg 
you to harden not your heart, you shrug your 
shoulders and say with a folly that is indescribable, 
"There's time enough yet!" 

There is nothing in this world that would add to 
your happiness so much as to be rid of your sins. 



336 THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 

Some of you think if you could have more money, 
a wider circle of friends, higher success in busi- 
ness, a better position in society, you would be a 
great deal happier than you are. Tou are failing 
to take into account that happiness is born of char- 
acter and conduct, and not of circumstances. A 
pure soul and a useful life will always find happi- 
ness. An impure soul and a useless life is as 
prone to misery as the sparks are to fly upward. 
It is often not a change of circumstances that men 
need so much as a change of heart, a transformed 
nature. There has been a good deal in the news- 
papers recently concerning a poor fellow known as 
the "Millionaire Tramp." He died the other day 
in the greatest wretchedness. He never was a 
millionaire, but after being a beggar for thirty 
years he suddenly inherited fifteen thousand dol- 
lars. If he could have gotten with that a clean 
heart and self-respect and good habits, he might 
have found peace and usefulness in the closing days 
of his life. But fifteen thousand dollars in a man's 
pocket has no power to take lusts and passions and 
wicked appetites out of his heart. From being a 
tramp without money he came to be a tramp with 
money. His old habits clung to him. He still 
went around the country in his rags, wasting his 
money in riotous living like the prodigal of old, 
squandering it on his sins until it was all gone and 



THE GREATEST SAYING IN THE WORLD. 337 

he died the poor miserable pauper he had been for 

so long. He who above all others can come into 

your life and sweeten it, and enrich you with the 

noblest treasures, is Jesus Christ, who came into 

this world to save sinners. Give him the privilege 

of saving you now! 
22 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



" The time of my departure is come. I have fought the 
good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith : 
henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteous- 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to 
me at that day : and not only to me, but also to all them that 
have loved his appearing." — 2 Tim, iv. 6-8 (Rev. Ver.). 

Nothing could show more clearly the earnest 
way in which Paul looked at life than the three 
figures which he uses here to describe his own 
career. "I have fought the good fight." Life to 
him was a battle. This was a favorite illustration 
with him. In another place he urges Timothy to 
equip himself to be "a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ." In Ephesians he points out the sort of 
an armor a man ought to have in order to make a 
successful fight against the sins and enemies which 
he must meet in the course of a human career. 
"Put on," says this veteran soldier of life, "the 
whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand 
against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling 
is not against flesh and blood, but against the 
principalities, against the powers, against the 
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



339 



hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 
Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that 
ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, 
having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having 
girded your loins with truth, and having put on 
the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod 
your feet with the preparation of the gospel of 
peace ; withal taking up the shield of faith, where- 
with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts 
of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, 
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
God : with all prayer and supplication, praying at 
all seasons in the Spirit." 

Paul was not deceived. Life is a battle, and 
every one of you will find it so ; and the reason we 
see about us so many discouraged, defeated men 
and women from whom all life's hopes seem to 
have vanished, whose golden age is all in the past, 
who have no future to which they look forward 
with joy, who have no courage with which to wrest 
victory out of defeat, is because they have gone out 
to the battle of life empty-handed, and have grap- 
pled with sin without an armor and without a 
sword. 

Again Paul looks back over his life and says, " I 
have finished the course." Life is like a race- 
course. Every man and woman born into the 
world is entered in the race. To achieve success 



340 THE WAITING CROWNS. 



in running a race one must not carry any baggage 
that impedes him. You never saw a man running 
a race handicapped with a valise, or with a big 
bundle on his back. He strips for the race ; every 
muscle must be free ; neither limbs nor body must 
be constrained. So Paul urges in his letter to the 
Hebrews : " Let us also, seeing we are compassed 
about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside 
every weight, and the sin which doth so easily 
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that 
is set before us, looking unto Jesus." The reason 
you have fallen behind in your race toward heaven 
so that some of you feel that heaven is farther 
away than it was five or ten or twenty years ago, 
when you left home, is because you have been 
weighed down by sin, and you will have to cut 
loose the burdens of your sins or be eternally 
distanced. 

Life is a serious trust in Paul's thought. "I 
have kept the faith." How is it with you? When 
you were a little child it was as easy and natural 
for you to believe in God, and in Christ, and in 
heaven, as it was to believe in your father and 
mother. It was as natural for you to pray as it 
was to talk to your mother. The Bible was the 
book of God's love to you. What have you done 
with that childish innocency and trust? W 7 hat 
have you done with that simple faith in God and 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



341 



in his Book? That was a sacred trust committed 
to you. It ought to have grown with every year 
of your life, as, like Enoch of old, you walked 
with God and came to know him as the friend 
who stood by you in time of storms, a friend closer 
than a brother in the hours of sorrow, and your 
inspiration for every noble deed. Have you 
frittered it away? These are solemn questions. 
How goes the battle? How speeds your soul on 
the heavenly race? Are you keeping the trust 
God committed to you, so that you can meet him 
in the judgment with peace ? 

I am impressed with this Scripture in its sug- 
gestion that everything must be judged by what 
will be its result at the end. Paul is talking about 
a Christian life at the close of the earthly career. 
He is ready to sail now ; the ship is in the dock, 
and the last rope is about to be thrown off, and the 
time of his departure is at hand. What a tone of 
victory there is about that very word "departure" ! 
That is not the word of a defeated man, it is 
the cry of a victor ; a prisoner or a slave never 
could use that word. Death is robbed of all its 
sting, and a knightly traveler who is at home 
in all the worlds of God is about to take his 
departure from a world where he has fought a 
good fight, run an honorable course, kept faith- 
fully every trust committed to him. Covered 



342 THE WAITING CROWNS. 



with honors, he is going home to heaven to wear 
his crown. 

I repeat, you must judge everything by the end. 
Sin often begins with pleasure, but it ends in bitter 
dregs. See the young man that gloats over his 
first gold. He says: "I've no time for religion, 
but I must make money" ; and he goes into it with 
keen zest, and says, as he rubs his hands together 
over some sharp trade : " This is the life to live ! 
I pity those poor superstitious fellows that feel 
that they've got to give up their Sundays to go to 
church, and a night or two every week to prayer- 
meetings, and give their money to benevolences 
and missions. Poor fellows, they're to be pitied!" 
But just wait until you see a poor old miser com- 
ing toward the end, with nobody to love him be- 
cause he has never loved anybody. All his life he 
has been cultivating suspicions in his soul, and 
now he trusts nobody and thinks everybody wants 
to rob him ; and with all generous blood frozen in 
his veins he comes to the last a pitiful, lonely crea- 
ture. Or see the young pleasure-seeker who says : 
" I must sow my wild oats and have my good time. 
I can't afford to be a total abstainer when it adds 
so much to jollity to have a glass of wine, or a 
mug of beer, with the fellows." Yes, that is the 
beginning, but what about the end? Come with 
me to the cheap lodging-houses, notice the street 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



343 



corners and the low saloons. In an hour's walk 
you may see a thousand men who began just like 
that — with youth, a good name, strong health, 
good clothes, money in their pockets and good 
positions ; but I'll show you those men to-night, 
ragged and haggard and nervous and seamed with 
sin, hopeless, and despairing. It was the froth 
they were drinking in their youth; they are drink- 
ing the dregs now. Well does God's Word de- 
clare that there is a way that seemeth right unto a 
man, but the end is death. 

Down on the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouth of 
a little creek called the Blind Oso, lies a pile of 
human bones, the skeletons of more than half a 
hundred men, and this is their story : Long ago, 
more than a hundred years, a pirate ship had a 
habit of coming into the harbor there, and sending 
out its band of raiders through all the ranches 
round about, who in their lawlessness raided and 
plundered as they would. They grew bolder with 
their success, and finally, knowing that they were 
coming in at a certain time, a rancher gathered a 
great band of men to lie in ambush and await their 
landing. Sure enough, one day the pirate ship 
was seen approaching the mouth of the Blind Oso. 
After a time the boats were lowered, and a large 
party of the pirates came rowing leisurely toward 
shore. Their firearms were stacked in the bottom 



344 THE WAITING CROWNS. 



of the boats, and they seemed to have lost all fear 
of enemies on shore. The boats were pulled up to 
the bank, and the pirates stepped out and came 
clambering up just opposite where their enemies 
waited. As they were almost past the order to 
fire was given, and then a charge was made on the 
outlaws. The pirates had no chance to defend 
themselves, and every man of them was killed in a 
few minutes. Their bodies were not buried, but 
were piled up on the sand and made a feast for the 
carrion birds and hungry wolves for many days 
thereafter. The Mexicans of that region always 
shun the spot, and through all the years the bones 
have bleached in the Southern sun. 

The presumptuousness of sin is like that. A 
man goes on raids of self-indulgence ; he presumes 
on God's mercy not to smite him down in his sins. 
He may go unwhipped of justice for a time, but 
the end is the pile of bleaching bones on the sand, 
and it is as sure in this city as on the shores of 
the Gulf of Mexico. It is never safe to break the 
law of God, and every hour a man remains in sin 
he is guilty of the wildest folly and presumption. 
No wise man will ever attempt any deed on which 
God's law frowns. If you can not do what you 
are tempted to do without feeling the condemna- 
tion of God's law hanging over you, then be sure 
that danger and death lurk in the deed. There 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



345 



used to be legends of demon-prepared banquets 
which were spread in the desert to tempt some 
brave and noble knight from an honorable mission, 
and when the name of God was pronounced over 
these tempting feasts they vanished, and instead 
of a luxurious table with gold dishes filled with 
rarest dainties to tempt the appetite, there re- 
mained only a heap of dry sticks and stones on the 
sand. So unless you can pray God's blessing on 
your deed, and thus look forward to the final re- 
sults of it with peace,, you may be sure that it is a 
devil's fraud. 

I am impressed, also, with the marvelous love of 
Jesus Christ, who comes down from heaven and 
bears our sorrow and shame, and dies on the 
cross, to lift the poor victims of sin out of their 
bondage and their trouble and make them the kind 
of men and women who shall be crowned in heaven. 
There is nothing that will adequately illustrate this 
love of God in Christ Jesus for condemned sinners. 

When Madame Sontag began her musical career, 
it is said that she was brought into sharp rivalry 
with Amelia Steininger, who had already begun 
to decline because of dissipation. Once when 
Madame Sontag appeared in Vienna, the friends 
of her rival hissed her, causing her great annoy- 
ance and sorrow ; but the years passed away, and 
later, when Madame Sontag was at the height of 



346 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



her fame, she was riding through the streets of 
Berlin and saw a little girl leading a blind woman. 
The queen of song stopped her carriage and said : 
" Come here, my little child, come here. Who is 
that you are leading by the hand?" And the 
wondering child replied: "That's my mother; 
that's Amelia Steininger. She used to be a great 
singer ; but she lost her voice, and cried so much 
about it that she lost her eyesight." 

" Give my love to her, " said Madame Sontag, 
" and tell her an old acquaintance will call on her 
this afternoon." 

The next week in Berlin a vast assemblage 
gathered at a benefit for that poor blind woman, 
and the people who listened thought Madame Son- 
tag had never sung so like an angel before, and we 
may well believe it. And the generous woman em- 
ployed a skilled oculist, who tried in vain to give 
sight again to her poor enemy. Until the day of 
Amelia Steininger' s death, Madame Sontag ten- 
derly cared for her, and befriended her daughter 
afterward. 

What a glorious thing for a queen of song 
to do for one who had been her enemy ! But I 
know a more wonderful story still! And there 
are multitudes here who would gladly testify to it. 
Here is a man who had sin and worldliness tempt- 
ing him on one side, and the Christ who died to 



THE WAITING CROWNS. 



347 



redeem him singing the heavenly song in his ears 
on the other, and in his blindness and hardness of 
heart he hissed the Lord away and went with his 
Lord's enemy; and yet Christ in infinite generos- 
ity and tenderness came back again and again and 
knocked at the door of his heart, until, at last, he 
was let in, and brought sight to the blind, bread 
to the hungry, the water of life to the thirsty, and 
led the enraptured soul upward to its crowning. 

It was not only Paul who had such a glorious 
outlook for the future. Every Christian from that 
day till this who has served the Lord with gladness 
has come to the time of departure in peace. A 
good old Scotchman was dying on a Sunday night. 
The bell of the kirk was ringing, calling the peo- 
ple to church. The old saint heard it, and, half 
dreaming, thought he was on his way to the church 
as he used to be when he had to ford the river ; and 
as the evening bell struck up he said : " Hark, chil- 
dren, the bells are ringing ; we shall be late ; we 
must make the mare step out quick !" He shivered 
and then said : " Pull the robe up closer, my lass ! 
it is cold crossing the river, but we shall soon be 
there!" And he smiled and said: "Just there 
now." The sweetest smile that ever came upon 
the old grizzled face shone upon it then, for he had 
got to church— not to the old Highland kirk, but 
to the temple of the glorified. 



Books by 

DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS. 



Christ and His Friends* 

A Collection of Revival Sermons, Simple and Direct, and Wholly 
Devoid of Oratorical Artifice, but Rich in Natural Eloquence, and 
Burning with Spiritual Fervor. The author has strengthened 
and enlivened them with many illustrations and anecdotes. 
12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Rough Edges. Price, $1.50; post-free. 

National Presbyterian, Indianapolis: "One of the most marked revivals 
attended their delivery, resulting in hundreds of conversions. Free from extrav- 
agance and fantasticism, in good taste, dwelling upon the essentials of religious 
faith, their power has not been lost in transference to the printed page." 

New York Observer: " These sermons are mainly hortatory . . . always 
aiming at conviction or conversion. They abound in fresh and forcible illus- 
trations. . . . They furnish a fine specimen of the best way to reach the popular 
ear, and may be commended as putting the claims of the Gospel upon men's at- 
tention in a very direct and striking manner. No time is wasted in rhetorical 
ornament, but every stroke tells upon the main point," 



The Fisherman and His Friends* 

A Companion Volume to " Christ and His Friends," consisting of 
Thirty-one Stirring Revival Discourses, full of Stimulus and Sug- 
gestion for Ministers, Bible class Teachers, and all Christian 
Workers and Others who Desire to become Proficient in the 
Supreme Capacity of Winning Souls to Christ. They furnish a 
rich store of fresh spiritual inspiration, their subjects being strong, 
stimulating, and novel in treatment, without being sensational or 
elaborate. They were originally preached by the author in a 
successful series of revival meetings, which resulted in many 
conversions. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top. Price, $1.50; post-free. 

Bishop John F. Hurst: "It is a most valuable addition to our devotional 
literature. 1 ' 

New York Independent : " There is no more distinguished example of the 
modern people's preacher in the American pulpit to-day than Dr. Banks. This 
volume fairly thrills and rocks with the force injected into its utterance.'''' 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS — Continued. 



Paul and His Friends* 

A companion volume to "Christ and His Friends," and "The 
Fisherman and His Friends," being similarly bound and ar- 
ranged. The book contains thirty-one stirring revival sermons 
delivered in a special series of revival services at the First M. E. 
Church, Cleveland. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Rough Edges. 
Price, $1.50. 

The Christian Gentleman. 

A volume of original and practical addresses to young men. The 
addresses were originally delivered to large and enthusiastic au- 
diences of men, in Cleveland, at the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation Hall. 12mo, Buckram. Price, 75 cents. 

Hero Tales from Sacred Story* 

The Romantic Stories of Bible Characters Retold in Graphic 
Style, with Modern Parallels and Striking Applications. Richly 
Illustrated with 19 Full-page, Half-tone Illustrations from Fa- 
mous Paintings. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Cover Design by George 
Wharton Edwards. Price, $1.50. 

Christian Work, New York: " One can not imagine a better book to put 
into the hands of a young man or young woman than this." 

The Saloon-Keeper's Ledger* 

The Business and Financial Side of the Drink Question. Among 
the items treated are: The Saloon Debtor to Disease, Private and 
Social Immorality, Ruined Homes, Lawlessness and Crime, and 
Political Corruption. 12mo, Cloth. Price, 75 cents. 

The Christian Herald, Detroit: " This is one of the most notable contri- 
butions to temperance literature of recent years. The discourses are the master- 
pieces of an expert, abounding in apt illustrations and invincible logic, sparkling 
with anecdote, and scintillating with unanswerable facts." 

Sermon Stories for Boys and Girls* 

Short Stories of great interest, with which are interwoven les- 
sons of practical helpfulness for young minds. The stories have 
been previously told in the author's congregation, where their potency 
and attractiveness have become surprisingly manifest. The book has 
a special value for the Sunday-school, the nursery, the pastor's study, 
and the school-room. 12mo, Cloth, Artistic Cover Design, Illus- 
trated. Price, $1.00. 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS — Continued. 



Seven Times Around Jericho* 

Seven Strong and Stirring Temperance Discourses, in which Deep 
Enthusiasm is Combined with Rational Reasoning — A Refreshing 
Change from the Conventional Temperance Arguments. Pathetic 
incidents and stories are made to carry most convincingly their 
vital significance to the subjects discussed. They treat in broad 
manner various features of the question. 12mo, Handsomely 
Bound in Polished Buckram. Price, 75 cents. 

Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati: " The book is sure to be a power for 
good. The discourses have the true ring. ,, 

Jersey City News : " Such able discourses as these of Dr. Banks will won- 
derfully help the great work of educating and arousing the people to their duty." 

Revival Quiver* 

A Pastor's Record of Four Revival Campaigns. 12mo, Cloth, 
$1.50. 

This book is, in some sense, a record of personal experiences in revival 
work. It begins with "Planning for a Revival, 1 ' followed by "Methods in 
Revival Work." This is followed by brief outlines of some hundred or more 
3ermons. They have points to them, and one can readily see that they were 
adapted to the purpose designed. The volume closes with "A Scheme of City 
Evangelization." It seems to us a valuable book, adapted to the wants of many 
a preacher and pastor. 

White Slaves ; or, The Oppression of the Worthy Poor* 

Fifty Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

The Rev. Dr. Banks has made a personal and searching investigation into 
the homes of the poorer classes, and in the "White Slaves" the results are 
given. The work is illustrated from photographs taken by the author; and the 
story told by pen and camera is startling. It should be borne in mind that the 
author's visits were made to the homes of the worthy poor, who are willing to 
work hard for subsistence, and not to the homes of the criminal and vicious. 

The Christ Dream* 

12mo, Cloth, $1.20. 

A series of twenty-four sermons in which illustrations of the Christ ideal 
are thrown upon the canvas, showing here and there individuals who have risen 
above the selfish, and measure up to the Christ dream. In tone it is optimistic, 
and sees the bright side of life. 

Common Folks' Religion* 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

Boston Journal: "Dr. Banks presents Christ to the 'common people, 1 
and preaches to every-day folk the glorious every-day truths of the Scripture. 
The sermons are original, terse, and timely, full of reference to current topics, 
and have that earnest quality which is particularly needed to move the people 
for whom they were spoken," 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS — Continued. 



The People's Christ* 

A Volume of Sermons and Other Addresses and Papers. 12mo, 
Cloth, $1.25. 

New York Observer : " These sermons are excellent specimens of dis- 
courses adapted to reach the masses. Their manner of presenting Christian 
truth is striking. They abound in all kinds of illustration, and are distinguished 
by a bright, cheerful tone and style, which admirably fit them for making per- 
manent impression." 



Heavenly Trade- Winds* 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25. 

From author's preface: "The sermons included in this volume have all 
been delivered in the regular course of my ministry in the Hanson-Place 
Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn. They have been blessed of God in 
confronting the weary, giving courage to the faint, arousing the indifferent, and 
awakening the sinful. 11 



The Honeycombs of Life* 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

Most of the discourses are spiritual honeycombs, means of refreshment and 
illumination by the way. " The SouPs Resources," "Cure for Anxiety," "At 
the Beautiful Gate," "The Pilgrimage of Faith," and " Wells in the Valley of 
Baca," are among his themes. The volume is well laden with evangelical truth, 
and breathes a holy inspiration. This volume also includes Dr. Banks's 
Memorial tribute to Lucy Stone and his powerful sermon in regard to the Chinese 
in America, entitled " Our Brother in Yellow." 



Immortal Hymns and Their Story* 

The Narrative of the Conception and Striking Experiences of 
Blessing Attending the Use of some of the World's Greatest 
Hymns. With 21 Portraits and 25 full-page half-tone illustra- 
tions by Norval Jordan. 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Top, $3.00. 



An Oregon Boyhood* 

The story of Dr. Banks's boyhood in Oregon in the pioneer days, 
including innumerable dramatic, romantic, and exciting experi- 
ences of frontier life. 12mo, Cloth. Tastefully bound and 
printed. Illustrated. Price $1.25. 



FINK & WAGNALLS CO., Publishers, 30 Lafayette PI., NEW YORK. 



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